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Wheat Fritters

A batter of eggs, milk, baking powder, salt, and flour fried in hot lard to make golden brown fritters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Wheat Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the milk, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Gradually add flour until the mixture is thicker than pancake batter.

  3. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into hot lard and fry until golden brown.

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 + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the hot fat.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the fritters puff and rise while frying.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it can be stirred in with the flour.
Flour
Builds the body of the batter so the fritters hold their shape when fried.
Lard
Transfers heat to the batter, browning the outside and crisping the surface.

The step that matters

Keep the batter thick and the lard hot. A stiff batter holds its shape instead of spreading. Hot fat sets the outside quickly, so the fritters brown well and absorb less grease. Cool fat soaks in oil and yields heavy, greasy results.

“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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