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Dessert

Molasses Doughnuts

A fried doughnut made with molasses, eggs, buttermilk, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and buttermilk match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,973 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Molasses Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs in a large bowl.

  2. Add molasses, sugar, buttermilk, baking soda, melted lard, salt, and nutmeg; mix well.

Fry and drain

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into hot oil and fry until golden brown.

  2. Remove and drain on paper towels.

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. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Molasses + buttermilktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  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 nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure to the doughnuts as they set in the hot oil.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, deep flavour and moisture, and helps the doughnuts brown.
Buttermilk
Adds acidity and moisture, and reacts with baking soda to lighten the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk and molasses to produce gas that makes the doughnuts rise.
Lard
Adds fat for tenderness and richness and helps the doughnuts brown in the oil.

The step that matters

Frying the batter spoonfuls in hot oil. The oil must be hot enough to set the outside quickly and brown it. If it is too cool, the batter absorbs oil, becomes greasy and cooks through unevenly before turning golden.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Gingerfits about as well
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, molasses, sugar, buttermilk. 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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