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Dessert

Apple-Fritters

Apple fritters are fried apple slices coated in a thick batter of eggs, milk, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Apple-Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks and whites well, then strain the beaten eggs.

  2. Add the milk, salt, grated nutmeg, and brandy, mixing well.

  3. Gradually add fine flour to make a thick batter.

Prepare the apples

  1. Dust the apple slices with fine sugar and let them sit for 2 hours.

  2. Dip each apple slice in the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the battered apple slices in boiling lard over high heat until golden.

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. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Brandy + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

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

  3. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Nutmeg + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter together.
Egg whites
Add lightness and help the batter puff and set when fried.
Fine flour
Thickens the liquid into a batter that coats the apple slices.
Milk
Thins the batter and adds softness and tenderness.
Apples
Provide the main fruit, softening slightly while the batter fries crisp.

The step that matters

Frying the battered apples in hot lard. Lard must be boiling and the heat high so the batter sets and browns quickly. If the fat is too cool, the batter absorbs oil, turns greasy, and the apple cooks unevenly.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, nutmeg, brandy, flour, 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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