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Dessert

Plain Doughnuts

A simple fried dough made with sour milk, butter, baking soda, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Plain Doughnuts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix sour milk, melted butter (or cream), baking soda, and salt.

  2. Add enough flour to form a dough.

  3. Let the dough stand for one hour before rolling it out.

Fry

  1. Heat oil in a deep pan until very hot.

  2. Fry the doughnuts until golden brown on both sides.

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. Milk + buttertop 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).

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

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to produce gas, helping the doughnuts rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to release carbon dioxide, leavening the dough.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together and lets it be rolled and shaped.
Melted butter
Adds fat, which tenderizes the dough and adds richness to the crumb.

The step that matters

Heat the oil until very hot. If the oil is not hot enough, the doughnuts absorb excess oil and turn greasy and heavy. If it is too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks through. Steady, very hot oil seals the surface quickly so the dough cooks evenly and stays light.

“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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