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Dessert

Crullers or Fried Cakes

A fried dough cake made with flour, sugar, butter, eggs, milk, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Crullers or Fried Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat oil for frying.

  2. In a bowl, rub together the butter and sugar until creamy.

  3. Mix in the eggs until well combined.

  4. Stir in the milk and your choice of flavoring.

  5. Gradually mix in the flour and baking powder until thoroughly combined.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the dough into crullers and fry until golden brown.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough once it is mixed with the liquid and fat.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the dough.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure.
Baking powder
Releases gas to lighten the dough as it cooks.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the fried crust turn golden brown.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the dough its soft, moist texture.

The step that matters

Frying the shaped dough. The oil must be hot enough to brown the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the crullers absorb excess oil and turn greasy before they cook through.

“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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