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Apple Fritters, English Style

Apple fritters are bread rounds soaked in egg and milk, fried, topped with stewed apples and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Apple Fritters, English Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Beat the egg and mix in salt and milk.

  2. Cut out four rounds of stale bread.

  3. Soak the bread rounds in the egg and milk mixture.

Cook and serve

  1. Fry the soaked bread in deep fat until golden.

  2. Stew the apples in a few spoonfuls of syrup until tender.

  3. Place a stewed apple on each round of bread and grate nutmeg on top.

  4. Serve very hot.

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 + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  3. Apple + nutmegtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Bread + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg
Binds the milk to the bread and sets to form a crisp, golden coating when fried.
Stale bread
Absorbs the egg and milk mixture and fries into a crisp outside with a soft centre.
Milk
Thins the egg into a soaking batter that moistens the bread and adds softness.
Apples
Stewed until tender, they provide soft fruit and sweetness for the fritter.
Syrup
Sweetens the apples while they stew and helps them become tender.

The step that matters

Soak the bread rounds in the egg and milk mixture. The bread must soak long enough to absorb the batter, but not so long that it falls apart. Stale bread absorbs liquid well, so it holds its shape in hot fat and fries to a golden, crisp exterior.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, bread, syrup, nutmeg):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, bread, syrup, nutmeg. 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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