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Dessert

Cream Fritters

A batter of cream, egg whites, flour, nutmeg, and salt is fried in lard to make golden fritters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cream Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, stir the egg whites into the cream alternately with the flour.

  2. Add the nutmeg and salt, then beat the mixture vigorously for 2 minutes until thick.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat the lard in a frying pan.

  2. Drop a spoonful of batter for each fritter into the hot lard.

  3. Fry until golden brown, then drain on a clean napkin.

  4. Serve warm with jelly sauce and pull them open to eat.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

Egg and flour 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

Egg whites
Trap air when beaten, giving the batter lightness and structure as the fritters set.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the batter tender inside.
Flour
Provides structure, setting into a firm crumb as the batter cooks.
Nutmeg
Adds warm aromatic flavour to the batter.

The step that matters

Drop a spoonful of batter for each fritter into the hot lard. Frying in hot fat sets the outside quickly and browns it, while the inside cooks through. If the lard is not hot enough, the fritters absorb grease and turn heavy and oily.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Jalapenofits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, egg, flour. 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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