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Dessert

Queen Fritters

A fried batter of milk, flour, eggs, butter, and sugar, filled with fruit preserves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and fruit preserve share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 37 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Queen Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a small saucepan, melt the butter and pour in the boiling water or milk.

  2. Bring to a boil, then add the flour all at once and stir until the mixture pulls away from the sides of the pan.

  3. Remove from heat and add the eggs one at a time, beating constantly.

Fry and fill

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into hot oil and fry until puffed and golden brown.

  2. Drain the fritters, make an opening, fill with fruit preserves, and sprinkle with powdered 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. Sugar + fruit preservetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together37 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour 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

Flour
Forms the starch structure that holds the batter together and lets the fritters puff.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, setting as the fritters cook and helping them rise.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the dough.
Boiling milk or water
Hydrates the flour and turns the mixture into a soft dough when heated.

The step that matters

Add the eggs one at a time, beating constantly. Eggs must be fully incorporated into the hot starch paste one at a time so the dough stays smooth and glossy. Adding them too fast can curdle the mixture or leave it too loose to puff properly.

“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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