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Dessert

Banana Fritters

Fried banana pieces coated in powdered sugar, served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Banana and sherry work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 117 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Banana Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the bananas

  1. Remove the skins from the bananas and cut them in half lengthwise, then cut each half into two pieces crosswise.

  2. Sprinkle the banana pieces with lemon juice and sherry wine, then dredge heavily with powdered sugar.

  3. Cover and let stand for 30 minutes.

Fry and serve

  1. Drain the banana pieces and dip each one in Batter No. 2.

  2. Fry in deep hot fat until golden brown, then drain on brown paper.

  3. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve.

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. Banana + sherrytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together117 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Wine + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,157 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Banana + winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together244 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Banana + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,134 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Sherry + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,273 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Bananas
Provide the main fruit body and natural sweetness that flavors the fritter.
Batter no. 2
Forms a coating that fries to a crisp, golden shell around the banana.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the fruit and adds a light sugar coating that helps browning.
Sherry wine
Adds aroma and a mild acidic note to the bananas.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet banana flavor and slows browning of the fruit.

The step that matters

Frying in deep hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and becomes greasy instead of forming a crisp, golden crust. Hot fat sets the batter quickly, keeping the banana inside moist and the coating crisp.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (banana, sherry, wine, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pineapplefits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against banana, sherry, wine, 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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