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Dessert

Crullers

Crullers are fried dough pieces made from sugar, butter, eggs, sweet milk, baking soda, flour, and fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Crullers

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mix the sugar and butter until well combined.

  2. Add the eggs, sweet milk, and baking soda, mixing thoroughly.

  3. Gradually add enough flour to form a stiff dough.

  4. Roll out the dough and cut it into desired shapes.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a lined saucepan until hot.

  2. Drop the crullers into the hot lard and fry until puffed and browned.

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. Butter + milktop 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).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the dough a tender, browned crust.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, tenderizing the dough.
Eggs
Provide structure and binding, helping the dough hold its shape.
Baking soda
Reacts with the dough to help it rise and puff during frying.
Flour
Provides structure, forming the stiff dough that holds the cruller shapes.

The step that matters

Fry until puffed and browned. The lard must be hot enough before the dough goes in; if it is too cool, the crullers absorb grease and turn heavy instead of puffing and browning quickly.

“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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