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Dessert

Banana Fritters

A fried batter of mashed bananas, egg, flour, baking powder, salt, and sweet milk, dusted with powdered sugar and served with lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Banana and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,470 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Banana Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mash the bananas into a cream.

  2. Add the egg, flour, baking powder, salt, and sweet milk. Beat until thoroughly mixed.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls into hot oil and fry until golden brown.

  2. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve with lemon juice.

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. Banana + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,470 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk 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

Bananas
Provide the main flavour and sweetness, and moisture that forms the batter body.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the hot oil.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the batter so the fritters hold their shape.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the fritters rise and stay light.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a spoonable consistency.

The step that matters

Frying in hot oil. If the oil is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy and heavy. If it is too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks. Steady heat gives a crisp, golden exterior with a cooked interior.

Swap the banana

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

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

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