Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Dough Nuts
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
In a bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, and eggs until smooth.
Sift the flour, baking powder, and nutmeg together, then add to the butter mixture.
Add enough warm milk to form a paste.
Shape and fry
Roll out the dough to ½ inch thick, cut into shapes, and fry in boiling butter or lard until light brown.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Butter
- Adds richness and tenderness, and carries flavour into the dough.
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the main structure that sets when the doughnuts fry.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas that lightens the dough so it rises when fried.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the fried surface brown.
The step that matters
Fry until light brown in hot fat. The fat must be boiling hot so the outside sets and browns quickly while the inside cooks through. If the fat is too cool, the doughnuts absorb grease and turn heavy and oily.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, flour, butter, egg):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Jalapenofits less well
- Capersfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, flour, butter, egg. 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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