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Bakers' Raised Doughnuts

A sweet doughnut made with lard, milk, flour, yeast, sugar, egg whites, spices, and filled with raisins, then fried and dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Bakers' Raised Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Warm the lard in the milk until nearly cool.

  2. Add enough flour to make a thick batter.

  3. Mix in the yeast. Beat well.

  4. Set aside to rise until light.

  5. Gradually work in the sugar, whipped egg whites, dissolved baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and grated nutmeg.

  6. Add enough flour to make a stiff dough that can be rolled out.

  7. Let the dough rise again until very light.

Shape the doughnuts

  1. Roll out the dough to 1 inch thick.

  2. Cut the dough into rounds.

  3. Place a large seeded Sultana raisin in the center of each round and mold into round balls.

  4. Flatten the balls slightly.

  5. Let them stand for a few minutes before frying.

Fry and coat

  1. Heat plenty of lard in a pot until boiling.

  2. Drop the doughnuts into the boiling lard. Fry until they are a light brown.

  3. Remove the doughnuts with a perforated skimmer.

  4. Drain on soft white paper.

  5. Roll the doughnuts in powdered sugar while warm.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the batter and then the stiff dough that gives the doughnuts their structure.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light and airy.
Egg whites
Whipped into the dough to add lift and a light, airy crumb.
Lard
Enriches the dough with fat for tenderness and is the medium that fries the doughnuts.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and feeds the yeast, and helps the doughnuts brown when fried.
Baking soda
Reacts with the dough's acidity to add extra rising and a lighter texture.

The step that matters

Frying in properly hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, doughnuts absorb excess oil and turn greasy and heavy; if too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks. Keeping the lard at a steady frying temperature gives a light, evenly cooked result.

“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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