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Dessert

Raised Doughnuts

Raised doughnuts made with sweet milk, sugar, butter, yeast, egg, nutmeg, flour, and fried in hot fat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Raised Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mix sweet milk, sugar, butter, yeast, egg, and nutmeg in a large bowl.

  2. Gradually add flour until well combined.

  3. Let the dough rise until light and fluffy.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Fry the doughnuts 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.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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).

Butter and flour 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

Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough structure to hold its shape and rise.
Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light and airy.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the dough bind and brown during frying.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and contributes to a soft crumb.
Sugar
Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and browning to the doughnuts.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until light and fluffy. Yeast needs enough time to produce gas and develop the dough's airy texture. Under-proofed dough stays dense and can become greasy when fried.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, 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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