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Bell Fritters

A fried batter fritter served with a molasses, butter, ginger, and cinnamon syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Bell Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a preserving kettle, bring 1 pint of water to a boil.

  2. Add 1 tablespoon of butter to the boiling water.

  3. In a bowl, mix 1 pint of sifted flour with cold water until smooth.

  4. Pour some boiling water into the flour mixture, stirring rapidly to avoid lumps.

  5. Return the mixture to the kettle and stir until smooth.

  6. Transfer the batter to a wooden tray.

  7. While hot, beat in the 6 eggs one at a time until light and fluffy.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat 1 pint of lard in a pan until hot.

  2. Shape the batter into egg shapes and drop them into the hot lard.

  3. Fry until golden brown.

  4. Make a syrup by boiling 1 pint molasses, 1 heaping tablespoon butter, ginger, and cinnamon until thick.

  5. Serve the fritters with the syrup.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Eggs
Beaten in while the batter is hot, they add structure and lightness to the fritters.
All-purpose flour
Forms the starch base of the batter, giving the fritters their body once cooked.
Molasses
Provides sweetness and dark flavor to the syrup served with the fritters.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the batter and the syrup.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into boiling water. Adding the boiling water to the flour mixture while stirring rapidly helps starch gelatinize and prevents lumps, giving a smooth batter that holds its shape when fried.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, egg, molasses, cinnamon. 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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