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Dessert

Doughnuts

A fried doughnut made with yeast, butter, eggs, sugar, milk, lemon extract, flour, and lard.

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

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 ↓

Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine yeast, butter, eggs, sugar, milk, and lemon extract.

  2. Gradually add flour until a soft dough forms.

  3. Let the dough rise until doubled in size.

Shape and fry

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

  2. Fry in smoking hot lard 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the dough rise and become light.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the dough its structure.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help bind the dough.
Butter
Adds fat, which softens the crumb and gives a tender texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during frying.
Milk
Provides moisture that hydrates the flour and yeast.

The step that matters

Fry in smoking hot lard until golden brown. If the lard is too cool, the dough absorbs excess fat and turns greasy. If it is too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks through. Steady, hot frying gives a crisp exterior and a fully cooked interior.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sugar, milk, 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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