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Dessert

Fruit Fritters, Batter for

A batter of milk, butter, flour, spices, and liqueur is used to coat or mix fruit, then fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Fruit Fritters, Batter for

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Warm the milk and stir in the butter until melted.

  2. Mix in the flour to form a batter.

  3. Sweeten to taste and add nutmeg, cinnamon, and liqueur or brandy.

  4. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and fold into the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat fat in a pan for frying.

  2. For larger fruits, slice them, dip in batter, and fry until golden.

  3. For smaller fruits, mix them into the batter and drop spoonfuls into the hot fat.

  4. Fry for 2-3 minutes until golden and drain on paper towels.

  5. Serve warm, sprinkled with sifted 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped to stiffness and folded in, they lighten the batter and help the fritters puff.
Flour
Forms the batter's structure, which sets around the fruit as it fries.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to tenderness and flavor.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour into a batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiff egg whites. Whites beaten to stiff peaks trap air that leavens the batter. Overmixing once they are folded in deflates them, leaving dense fritters.

“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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