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Dessert

Crullers

A fried dough pastry flavored with sugar, lard, egg, salt, and nutmeg.

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

Crullers

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mix sifted sugar, melted lard, egg, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Add nutmeg to taste.

  3. Knead in enough flour until the dough can be rolled out.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out the dough and cut with a cruller cutter.

  2. Fry in 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.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Sugar + nutmegtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together23,364 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Egg
Binds the dough and adds richness and structure as it sets.
Lard
Adds fat for tenderness and carries the heat that browns the crullers when frying.
Flour
Provides the structure that lets the dough be kneaded and rolled out.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the fried surface brown.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the crullers absorb excess fat and turn greasy and heavy. If it is too hot, the outside browns before the inside cooks through. Steady, moderate heat gives a golden crust and a fully cooked centre.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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.

More crullers recipes

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