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Dessert

Raised Doughnuts

Raised doughnuts are a yeast-based fried dough coated in powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Raised Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Heat lard in milk until very hot.

  2. Let the mixture cool.

  3. Add yeast, sugar, baking soda, egg, nutmeg, and salt to the cooled mixture.

  4. Stir in enough pastry flour to make a stiff dough.

  5. Let the dough rise until light.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out the dough to about 1 inch thick and cut into shapes.

  2. Place the cut doughnuts on a board to rise again until light.

  3. Fry the doughnuts in hot lard until golden brown.

  4. Roll the fried doughnuts in powdered sugar.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Yeast
Ferments and makes the dough rise, giving the doughnuts a light, airy crumb.
Pastry flour
Forms the stiff dough structure that holds the shape through rising and frying.
Lard
Adds fat for tenderness and carries the heat that browns the doughnut surface when frying.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the surface brown during frying.
Egg
Adds protein for structure and richness to the dough.
Milk
Provides moisture and liquid that hydrates the flour and dissolves the other ingredients.

The step that matters

Let the dough rise until light. Yeast needs time and warmth to produce gas that lightens the dough; underproofed dough stays dense and can turn heavy when fried.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, 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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