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Dessert

Pineapple Fritters

A batter of flour, milk, and egg fried with pineapple pieces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Orange and pineapple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,664 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Pineapple Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat together the flour, ½ cup of milk, and the egg yolk.

  2. Gradually add the remaining milk while continuing to beat the mixture.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg white until well combined.

  4. Spoon the batter and insert a piece of pineapple into each spoonful.

Fry

  1. Drop the fritters into hot lard and fry until golden brown.

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. Orange + pineappletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Milk + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together885 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Orange + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

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

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

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the batter together as it cooks.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the flour into a smooth, pourable batter.
Egg
Adds richness and helps bind and set the batter around the pineapple.
Pineapple
Adds moisture and fruity sweetness to the centre of each fritter.
Lard
Conducts heat to cook the fritters and promotes browning and a crisp surface.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard. Hot fat sets the outside of the batter quickly and browns it. If the lard is not hot enough, the fritters soak up oil and turn greasy and heavy.

Swap the orange

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

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

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