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Dessert

Cream of Tartar Doughnuts

A fried doughnut made with sugar, butter, sweet milk, cream of tartar, nutmeg, salt, baking soda, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Cream of Tartar Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix together the sugar, butter, sweet milk, cream of tartar, nutmeg, salt, and baking soda until soft.

Fry

  1. Heat lard in a deep pan for frying.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the dough into the hot lard and fry 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cream of tartar
Creates acidity that reacts with baking soda to help the doughnuts rise and stay tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas, lifting the dough as it fries.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the dough.
Sweet milk
Provides moisture that hydrates the flour and binds the dough.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the doughnuts brown in the hot lard.

The step that matters

Frying the dough in hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the dough absorbs excess fat and becomes greasy and heavy. If it is too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks. Steady, moderate heat gives a light, evenly cooked doughnut.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Macefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, cream. 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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