Skip to main content
Dessert

Banana Frityers

A fried batter-coated banana dessert made with eggs, milk, flour, sugar, and brandy or orange juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Banana and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,470 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Banana Frityers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bananas

  1. Peel and slice the bananas into rounds about ½ inch thick.

  2. In a bowl, sprinkle the banana slices with sugar and brandy (or orange juice) and let stand for at least 1 hour.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs until light and add the milk.

  2. Gradually pour the egg mixture into the flour, beating until smooth.

  3. Add the olive oil (or melted butter) and salt to the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip the banana pieces into the batter until fully coated.

  2. Drop the coated bananas into hot oil and fry until golden brown, about 2 minutes.

  3. Remove from oil and drain on brown paper.

  4. Sprinkle with sugar and serve immediately.

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. Banana + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,470 recipes

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

  2. Banana + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together797 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + olivetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,828 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

Bananas
Provide the main body and sweet flavour of the fritter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set and hold its shape when fried.
Flour
Forms the structure of the batter that coats the bananas.
Milk
Thins the batter to a smooth, coating consistency and adds tenderness.
Sugar
Sweetens the bananas and encourages browning on the fried surface.

The step that matters

Frying in hot oil. If the oil is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisping and browning quickly. Drain the fritters on paper once they are golden.

Swap the banana

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy, egg, milk, flour, olive. 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.

You might also like

Brandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipesBrandy CreamBrandy Cream21 recipesBanana FillingBanana Filling16 recipesBrandy PuddingBrandy Pudding13 recipes