Skip to main content
Dessert

French Fritters

A batter of flour, eggs, water, salt, and olive oil, folded with beaten egg whites, fried and dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
French Fritters

Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

French Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine 1 cup of flour.

  2. Beat the yolks of 2 eggs and add ½ cup of cold water, stirring gradually into the flour.

  3. Add 2 tablespoons of water and beat vigorously.

  4. Mix in ½ teaspoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of olive oil.

  5. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

  6. Let the batter rest for at least 2 hours, but no longer than 12.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat drippings or oil in a pan until boiling.

  2. Dip a spoonful of batter and slide it into the hot fat.

  3. Fry until brown on one side, then turn to brown the other side.

  4. Remove with a skimmer, drain on soft brown paper, and dust with powdered sugar before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + olivetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,871 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + olivetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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 batter's structure once it is mixed with the liquid.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while beaten whites add lightness and airy texture.
Cold water
Hydrates the flour and keeps the batter thin enough to fry into a light, crisp shell.
Olive oil
Adds fat that tenderizes the batter and helps it brown in the hot fat.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiff whites trap air that gives the fritters lightness. Stirring them in vigorously would deflate that foam, so they should be folded in gently.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes