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Plain Common Fritters

A batter of eggs, milk, flour, and butter fried into light fritters served with sugar and citrus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Plain Common Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix eggs and milk, strain, add gradually to flour, thin with more milk to cream consistency, beat thoroughly before use.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop batter into boiling lard in small portions; fry until lightly colored on one side, turn, drain, serve quickly.

  2. Serve with fine sugar and orange or lemon juice; sift sugar over fritters, serve with halved or quartered citrus.

  3. Add currants or apples to batter before use for variation.

Pancakes

  1. Thin batter with extra egg or milk/cream to make pancakes; pour into hot pan and spread thin.

  2. Heat pan, butter, pour batter, spread thin; cook without turning if thin enough; otherwise flip with a jerk.

  3. Keep pancakes hot until ready to serve; serve quickly.

  4. Serve pancakes piled with sugar or spread with preserve and rolled; divide into circles.

  5. Serve with clotted cream.

  6. Make richer pancakes with cream, eggs, flour, cinnamon, sugar, butter, and optional macaroons.

  7. Cook for 4 to 5 minutes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

979Calories
28 gProtein
32 gFat
146 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Apple1 medium (182g)95
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness when set by frying.
Flour
Forms the batter's structure, thickening it as it hydrates and sets.
Milk
Thins the batter to a cream consistency, adding moisture and tenderness.
Clarified butter
Adds fat and flavor, and helps the pancakes brown in the pan.
Pounded sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during frying.

The step that matters

Fry in boiling lard in small portions. Batter poured into fat that is not hot enough soaks up grease and turns heavy. Small portions keep the fat temperature up and let each fritter fry evenly and crisp.

Swap the apple

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

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

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