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 ↓
Raised Doughnuts
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Cool the scalded sweet milk to lukewarm.
Add the yeast, potatoes, and sugar to the milk.
Add the well-beaten eggs.
Warm 3½ cups of flour.
Add the warmed flour to the mixture.
Beat the mixture hard for one minute after all flour is added.
Cover the mixture.
Set it in a warm place to rise for about 1½ hours.
When the dough is light, add the remaining 4 cups of warmed flour, salt, melted butter and lard, and nutmeg.
Knead into a smooth, soft dough.
Place the dough in a covered container to rise again.
Shape and fry
When the dough has doubled in bulk, roll it out on a floured surface to about ¼ inch thickness.
Cut the dough into doughnut shapes.
Place the doughnuts on greased paper or pans.
Let them rise until perfectly light.
Fry the doughnuts in deep fat.
Once the doughnuts are cooled, dredge them in fine granulated sugar.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,052 recipes
Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
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Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Flour
- Provides the structure that traps gas and sets the dough once fried.
- Yeast
- Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
- Eggs
- Add richness and structure to the dough.
- Sugar
- Feeds the yeast and adds sweetness and gentle browning.
- Potatoes
- Add moisture and softness, keeping the crumb tender.
- Butter and lard mixed
- Add fat for tenderness and a richer mouthfeel.
The step that matters
Let the doughnuts rise until perfectly light before frying. Shaped dough that is under-proofed fries dense and greasy, because the yeast gas has not yet expanded the gluten structure. Fully risen pieces puff and cook through evenly in the hot fat.
Swap the potato
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, egg, butter, nutmeg, flour):
- Sweet potatofits better
- Arrowrootfits about as well
- Leekfits about as well
- Potatothe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg, butter, nutmeg, 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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