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Apricot Fritters

A batter‑coated apricot slice fried in lard and dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apricot and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,098 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Apricot Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Sift the flour into a large bowl.

  2. Add the egg yolk, salad oil, and ⅓ cup of ale; mix lightly.

  3. Gradually add more ale until the batter is the thickness of double cream.

Prepare the apricots

  1. Peel the apricots and cut each into 3 or 4 slices, removing the centers.

  2. Grate lemon zest over the apricot slices.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip each slice into the batter, then fry in hot lard until golden brown.

  2. Place fried fritters on a wire rack and coat with powdered 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. Apricot + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,098 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Apricot + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,630 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the batter's structure as it sets around the apricot slices when fried.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps the batter bind and brown during frying.
Light colored ale
Thins the batter and gives it a light, airy texture when fried.
Apricots
Provide the fruit filling, whose juices steam inside the crisp batter coating.
Salad oil
Adds fat that keeps the batter tender and moist.

The step that matters

Adjusting the batter thickness. Batter that is too thin will not coat the apricot slices and runs off into the hot lard, while batter that is too thick forms a heavy, doughy crust. Adding ale gradually lets the cook reach the thickness of double cream before any slice is dipped.

Swap the apricot

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Apricotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, lemon, 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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