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Dessert

Pineapple Fritters

A fried dessert of pineapple slices coated in a light batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Pineapple Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks in a bowl.

  2. Add milk, flour, salt, and melted butter; mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and fold into the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Sprinkle sugar on thinly sliced pineapple.

  2. Dip the pineapple slices in the batter and fry in deep hot lard until golden brown.

  3. Serve as a dessert.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + pineappletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together885 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Flour and butter 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

Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the batter and help it puff while frying.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter so it coats the fruit.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the batter around the pineapple as it fries.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and loosens the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for flavour and a tender texture in the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiff egg whites trap air that gives the batter lift. Overmixing or deflating them while folding makes the fritters dense and heavy.

Swap the pineapple

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

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

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