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Baking

Fritter Batter

A batter for frying small fritters, made with flour, pepper, baking powder, egg, milk, salt, and fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Fritter Batter

Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fritter Batter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Sift the flour, pepper, baking powder, and salt together.

  2. Slowly add the beaten egg and milk while beating constantly until the batter is smooth.

Fry the fritters

  1. Heat lard in a frying pan until smoking hot.

  2. Place six small muffin rings in the pan and fill each to one-fourth with lard.

  3. Fill the rings two-thirds full with the batter.

  4. Cook on one side, then turn with a spatula and cook on the other side.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + milktop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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 main structure of the batter once it sets in the hot fat.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the fritters rise and become light.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a pourable consistency.

The step that matters

Beating the batter smooth. Adding the egg and milk slowly while beating keeps lumps from forming and lets the flour hydrate evenly, so the batter cooks into a uniform, tender fritter.

“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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