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Dessert

Apple Fritters

A fried batter with apples, served with powdered sugar and maple syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,104 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Apple Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl.

  3. Add enough milk to the eggs to create a batter that runs from a spoon.

  4. Combine the wet and dry ingredients.

  5. Fold in the beaten egg whites and chopped apples.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into deep, hot lard or Crisco.

  2. Fry until nicely browned.

  3. Lift out the fritters and dredge with powdered sugar.

  4. Serve with maple syrup or any 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.

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

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

  2. Apple + maple syruptop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together272 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the batter that holds the fritter together.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the hot fat.
Baking powder
Releases gas during frying so the fritters rise and become light.
Chopped apples
Add moisture and sweetness, and their fruit flavour comes through as they cook.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls of the batter into deep, hot lard or Crisco.. If the fat is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy and heavy instead of crisping. Hot fat sets the outside quickly, so the fritters stay light inside.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, egg, sugar, maple syrup. 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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