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Dessert

Cream Fritters

A fried batter of macaroons, sugar, salt, lemon rind, eggs, and cream served with wine sauce and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Cream Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Pound the macaroons, sugar, salt, and lemon rind in a mortar until fine.

  2. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately.

  3. Combine the beaten eggs with the cream and the pounded mixture.

Fry and serve

  1. Form the mixture into fritters.

  2. Fry the fritters in hot oil until light brown on both sides.

  3. Serve immediately with wine sauce and 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 + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  5. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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

Egg whites
Beaten whites add lightness and help the fritters puff and hold air while frying.
Egg yolks
Yolks add richness and fat, helping bind the mixture and give a tender interior.
Cream
Cream adds moisture and richness, keeping the fritters soft inside.
Macaroons
Ground macaroons add body, almond flavor and sweetness, and help thicken the mixture.
Sugar
Sugar adds sweetness and helps the fritters brown when fried.

The step that matters

Frying until light brown on both sides. Oil that is not hot enough lets the fritters absorb fat and turn greasy, while oil that is too hot browns the outside before the centre sets. Turning them once helps even browning.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, cream. 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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