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Dessert

Doughnuts

A fried doughnut made with eggs, mashed potatoes, lard, sugar, milk, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Doughnuts

Why it works: Potato and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,052 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Beat the eggs and mix in the warm mashed potatoes.

  2. Add the lard or Crisco, sugar, milk, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg.

  3. Gradually add flour until a soft dough forms.

Fry

  1. Cut the dough into shapes and fry in hot fat 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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.
Mashed potatoes
Add moisture and a tender crumb to the dough.
Lard or crisco
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour in the dough.
Baking powder
Releases gas to give the doughnuts lift.
Flour
Forms the soft dough structure once hydrated.

The step that matters

Frying in hot fat. If the fat is too cool, doughnuts absorb excess oil and turn greasy; if too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks. Steady, moderate heat gives golden browning and a fully cooked interior.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk, nutmeg, 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.

More doughnuts recipes

Raised 110Plain 25Potato 18German 17Isle of Wight 16Sour Milk 14 See all 168 →

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