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Fritters Soufflés, with Vanilla

A sweet fritter made from a vanilla‑infused milk batter with flour, sugar, eggs, and butter, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Fritters Soufflés, with Vanilla

Ingredients

Directions

Infuse the milk

  1. Infuse the vanilla in boiling milk.

  2. Reduce the mixture to half.

  3. Remove the vanilla.

  4. Add butter to the milk and bring to a boil.

Make the paste

  1. Stir in enough sifted flour to form a soft paste.

  2. Dry the paste on the fire for a few minutes.

  3. Transfer the paste to another pot and mix in sugar, egg yolks, and salt.

  4. Beat egg whites until stiff.

  5. Fold the stiff egg whites with whipped cream to create a soft paste.

Shape and fry

  1. Shape the mixture into small balls or half-moons.

  2. Fry the fritters in hot oil until they swell and turn golden brown.

  3. Drain the fritters on a napkin and sprinkle with fine sugar before serving.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Clove + vanillatop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Milk
Provides the liquid that is thickened into the base of the paste.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture in the paste.
Flour
Gives the paste structure so it holds its shape when fried.
Egg yolks
Enrich the paste and help bind it into a smooth, cohesive mixture.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they add lightness and help the fritters puff.
Sugar
Sweetens the paste and helps the fritters brown when fried.

The step that matters

Frying in hot oil until golden. Hot oil sets the outside quickly and turns moisture in the paste to steam, which makes the fritters swell. If the oil is too cool, they soak up grease and turn heavy and oily.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

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