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Apple Fritters a l’Anglaise

Apple fritters made by dipping apple slices in batter and frying, then dusting with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,551 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Apple Fritters a l’Anglaise

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine flour, egg yolk, salad oil, and ⅓ cup of ale. Mix lightly with a whisk until the batter is the thickness of double cream, adding more ale as needed.

Prepare the apples

  1. Peel the apples and cut each into 3 or 4 slices, removing the core.

  2. Grate lemon zest over the apple slices.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip each apple slice into the batter, then fry in hot lard, about 8 pieces at a time.

  2. Once fried, place the fritters on a wire sieve to drain.

  3. Coat with powdered sugar and serve with the sugar side up.

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. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Forms the structure of the batter that puffs and crisps around the apple.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps the batter bind and brown.
Salad oil
Adds fat that keeps the batter tender and moist.
Light colored ale
Provides liquid and carbonation that lighten the batter as it fries.
Apples
Provide the main fruit, whose sweetness and moisture soften within the crisp coating.

The step that matters

Dip each apple slice into the batter, then fry in hot lard, about 8 pieces at a time.. Frying in small batches keeps the lard hot. Overcrowding cools the oil, so the batter absorbs grease instead of crisping quickly and turning golden.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, lemon, sugar. 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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