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Dessert

Lemon Fritters

A fried cake made with lemon, spices, and egg, served with a lemon wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Lemon Fritters

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Lemon Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the whipped and strained yolks of the eggs with powdered sugar.

  2. Add grated lemon peel, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt, then mix in the cream.

  3. Fold in the egg whites, then add the flour and mix quickly into a soft paste.

Fry and serve

  1. Roll out the paste to about ¾ inch thick and cut into small circular cakes.

  2. Fry the cakes in hot lard until they puff up like crullers.

  3. Drain on clean hot paper and serve warm with the sauce.

Make the sauce

  1. To make the sauce, mix lemon juice, grated lemon peel, powdered sugar, wine, and beaten egg whites.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Enrich the batter and add richness and a custard-like body.
Egg whites
Fold in air for lightness, helping the fritters puff while frying.
All-purpose flour
Provides structure, setting the batter into a paste that holds its shape.
Lard
Hot fat that cooks the fritters quickly, browning the outside and making them puff.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps give the batter and sauce a smooth texture.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity and bright citrus flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Frying the cakes in hot lard. The fat must be hot enough to set the outside quickly; if it is too cool, the cakes absorb grease, turn heavy, and fail to puff.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, cream, flour, sauce):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, cream, flour, sauce. 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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