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Dessert

Apple Fritters

Fried apple slices coated in a batter of flour, butter, eggs, and milk, served hot with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Apple Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Separate the egg whites and yolks, and beat them separately.

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour and melted butter until creamy.

  3. Add the salt and enough warm milk to create a batter that drops from a spoon.

  4. Stir well, add the yolks, then fold in the beaten egg whites.

Fry the apples

  1. Peel and slice the apples into thick slices, removing the core with a cutter.

  2. Dip each apple slice into the batter.

  3. Heat lard or clarified dripping in a pan until boiling.

  4. Fry the battered apple slices until golden brown, turning as needed.

  5. Drain on blotting paper to absorb excess grease.

Serve

  1. Serve hot, piled on a white doily, and sprinkle with pounded sugar.

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Whites beaten separately and folded in add lightness and help the batter puff and set.
Flour
Forms the body of the batter, giving it structure so it coats the apple slices.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavour and a tender texture to the batter.
Apples
Provide the main filling, softening inside while the batter fries to a crisp coating.

The step that matters

Frying the battered apple slices. The fat must be hot enough, or the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of browning quickly. Too cool a pan also lets the apple cook unevenly before the coating sets.

Swap the apple

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

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

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