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Dessert

New York New Year S Crullers

A sweet pastry made from sugar, butter, eggs, flour, cinnamon, and lard, shaped and fried into crullers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

New York New Year S Crullers

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, beat together the sugar, butter, and eggs until well combined.

  2. Gradually add flour until the mixture is very stiff, similar to cookie dough.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll the dough thinly like pastry and cut into fancy shapes using a jiggering wheel.

  2. Fry the shapes in hot lard until golden brown.

Finish

  1. Season with powdered cinnamon and sprinkle with salt before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure to the crullers.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the dough.
Flour
Stiffens the mixture so it can be rolled and cut into shapes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crullers brown during frying.

The step that matters

Fry the shapes in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, the shapes absorb excess fat and turn greasy; if too hot, they brown outside before cooking through. Steady heat gives a crisp, evenly cooked cruller.

Swap the cinnamon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, flour):

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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