Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Apple Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Mix 1 quart of milk, 3 eggs, and enough flour to create a batter that is not very stiff.
Pare and core 12 large apples, then chop them into pieces about the size of small peas.
Fold the chopped apples into the batter.
Add 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar and ½ teaspoon of baking soda, mixing well.
Fry and serve
Heat lard in a frying pan.
Drop spoonfuls of the batter mixture into the hot lard.
Fry until golden brown, then remove and serve dusted with powdered sugar.
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.
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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + appletop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,104 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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 as the fritters set in the hot fat.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas, helping the fritters rise and lighten.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidic partner to the baking soda, producing gas that lightens the batter.
- Apples
- Add moisture, sweetness, and aroma, and give the fritters bites of fruit.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that hydrates the flour and gives the batter its body.
- Flour
- Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the batter its body and structure.
The step that matters
Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the batter absorbs fat and turns greasy instead of crisping. Frying at a steady high heat sets the outside quickly while the inside cooks through.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, flour, cream, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, flour, cream, sugar. 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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