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Dessert

Plain Doughnuts

Plain doughnuts made from a simple dough of eggs, milk, butter, lard, baking powder, and flour, then fried and dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Plain Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the milk, melted butter, melted lard, and baking powder.

  2. Gradually add flour until the dough is workable.

  3. Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in hot lard until golden brown.

  2. Roll in powdered sugar before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness to the crumb.
Milk
Adds moisture so the dough comes together and stays tender.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor, making the doughnuts tender and rich.
Lard
Adds fat for tenderness and is used to fry the doughnuts to golden brown.
Baking powder
Releases gas that makes the dough rise and lighten as it cooks.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together after mixing.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is not hot enough, doughnuts absorb excess oil and turn greasy and dense. If it is too hot, the outside browns before the inside cooks through. Steady, moderate heat lets the dough rise and cook evenly.

“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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