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Dessert

Fritter Batter

A simple batter for making fritters, made with flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, egg, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Fritter Batter

Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fritter Batter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder together.

  2. Add the beaten egg and milk; beat until light and smooth.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop by spoonfuls into very hot fat.

  2. Sprinkle with sugar and serve with maple syrup or lemon sauce.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it cooks.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds richness and structure to the fritters.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking so the fritters rise and turn light.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the batter a smooth, pourable consistency.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the fritters brown in the hot fat.

The step that matters

Drop by spoonfuls into very hot fat. Very hot fat seals the outside of each fritter quickly, so it browns well and absorbs less oil. Cool fat lets the batter soak up grease and turn heavy.

“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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