Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓
Eaised Doughnuts
Ingredients
Directions
Boil and mash the potatoes.
Add milk and strain the mixture.
Mix in butter and yeast to create a sponge.
Add flour to make a stiff batter and let it rise until light.
Incorporate sugar, eggs, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon.
Add more flour to achieve a stiff consistency like biscuit dough.
Let the dough rise until very light.
Pour the dough onto a board without kneading and flatten it out with your hands.
Cut the dough into squares and let them rise until very light.
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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Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together11,917 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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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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Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,052 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, flour, sugar, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon):
- Sweet potatofits better
- Arrowrootfits better
- Shallotfits about as well
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, sugar, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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