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Dessert

Another Recipe for Crullers

A sweet pastry made with sugar, butter, milk, eggs, flour, baking powder, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Another Recipe for Crullers

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Beat the egg yolks and sugar until very light.

  2. Add the butter and milk, then mix in enough flour to form a stiff dough.

  3. Stir in nutmeg, cinnamon, and the well-beaten egg whites.

  4. Finally, add the baking powder.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll, shape, and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the dough, while whites add lightness and structure.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the dough.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the stiff dough together.
Baking powder
Releases gas to lift the dough as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps browning as it bakes.

The step that matters

Adding the baking powder last. Baking powder starts releasing gas once it meets moisture and heat, so it should be added just before shaping and baking. Waiting too long before baking lets gas escape, leaving the crullers flatter and denser.

“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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