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Dessert

Apple Fritters

Fried apple slices coated in a light batter, served with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Apple Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Core and peel the apples, then slice them into ⅓-inch thick rounds.

  2. Season the apple slices with nutmeg.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, salt, and sugar.

  2. Add the milk and beat until the batter is light and smooth.

  3. Stir in the melted butter and beaten egg.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip each apple slice into the batter, then gently drop them into hot oil.

  2. Fry for 3 minutes until golden, then lift out and drain on paper towels.

  3. Serve immediately, sprinkled with powdered sugar.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Flour and butter 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

Tart apples
Provide the fruit that softens and becomes tender inside the crisp batter coating.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the batter that coats and crisps around the apple.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set firm and cohesive during frying.
Milk
Adds liquid to hydrate the flour into a smooth, pourable batter.
Melted butter
Adds fat that enriches flavour and contributes to a tender, golden crust.

The step that matters

Frying the dipped apple slices. Oil must be hot before the batter-coated slices go in. If it is too cool, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisping quickly around the fruit.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, egg, sugar, butter, nutmeg. 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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