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Dessert

Arrowroot Fritters

A sweet, baked arrowroot mixture thickened with milk and egg, then fried and served with jam.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Arrowroot Fritters

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the custard

  1. Combine milk, sugar, and bay leaves in a saucepan and bring to a boil.

  2. Mix arrowroot with a little cold water until smooth, then stir into the boiling milk.

  3. Add beaten egg yolks and stir constantly until thick and smooth.

Bake and shape

  1. Pour mixture into a well-oiled pie dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) until set.

  2. Allow to cool, then stamp out rounds from the mixture.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip each round in egg and coat with bread crumbs.

  2. Fry in hot lard until golden brown and serve with jam.

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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Arrowroot + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together101 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Milk + arrowroottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together817 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Arrowroot
Thickens the milk into a set custard that holds its shape when cooled.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help the mixture set firm when baked.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the custard that thickens and sets.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the mild flavour of the custard.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp, golden coating that browns during frying.

The step that matters

Stir the custard constantly until thick. Arrowroot and egg yolks can clump or scorch on the base of the pan if left unstirred, leaving lumps and an uneven texture. Constant stirring keeps the starch and proteins evenly dispersed as the mixture thickens.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Arrowrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, egg, bread. 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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