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Custard Fritters

Custard fritters are pieces of custard batter fried in lard, served with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream 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 ↓

Custard Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat together the sugar, milk, cream, and eggs.

  2. Strain the mixture into a bowl.

  3. Steam gently for about 20 minutes in a saucepan of boiling water, covering half the sides of the bowl.

Fry and serve

  1. Once cold, cut into pieces about 1½ inches square.

  2. Dip each piece in Common Batter and fry in plenty of hot lard.

  3. Serve with sugar.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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
Set the custard so it holds its shape when chilled and cut.
Milk
Provides the liquid base that the eggs set into a custard.
Cream
Adds richness and a softer, smoother texture to the custard.
Sugar
Sweetens the custard and adds flavour to the finished fritters.

The step that matters

Steam gently. Steaming gently with the bowl partly covered lets the eggs set evenly without boiling. High heat would make the custard bubbly and rough in texture, and it might not set properly.

“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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