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Peach Fritters

Peach fritters are fried batter cakes made with flour, eggs, milk, butter, and sliced peaches.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Peach Fritters

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Peach Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Pour boiling water over ½ pound of flour to make a smooth batter.

  2. Add the walnut-sized piece of butter while the mixture is warm.

  3. Once cool, whisk 6 eggs until thick and light, then gradually add ⅓ cup of milk.

  4. Stir in 1¼ pounds of flour, half at a time, along with a little salt.

  5. Slice ripe peaches just before using and fold them into the batter lightly.

Fry and serve

  1. In a frying pan, heat boiling lard and drop in a tablespoon of batter for each fritter.

  2. Fry until light brown on both sides, ensuring they do not touch.

  3. Serve hot with butter and sugar or molasses if preferred.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Walnut + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Eggs
Whisked until thick and light, they trap air and give the fritters lift and a tender structure.
Flour
Forms the batter's structure once set by heat, giving the fritters their body.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it blends smoothly with the eggs and flour.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing tenderness and flavor to the batter.
Peaches (in the method)
Provide fruity sweetness and moisture that flavor the fritters as they cook.

The step that matters

Fry without crowding. Fritters that touch while frying steam against each other instead of browning evenly, so they stay pale and soft. Frying them separately in hot lard lets each surface brown and crisp.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Walnutthe original
  3. Pecansfits about as well
  4. Milletfits about as well

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