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Dessert

Golden Ball Fritters

A fried dough fritter made with water, butter, sugar, flour, eggs, and served with syrup or melted sugar and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Golden Ball Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Combine water, butter, and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Stir in the sifted flour quickly and thoroughly.

  4. Remove the mixture from heat.

  5. Let it cool slightly.

  6. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the dough into boiling lard.

  2. Stir the lard to help the fritters form round shapes.

  3. Serve with syrup or melted sugar and butter.

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 + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + syruptop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,540 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 starchy structure that holds the dough and fritters together.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, setting the fritters as they cook and puff.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the dough.
Water
Provides the liquid that turns the flour into a dough and produces steam for lightness.

The step that matters

Beating in the eggs. Eggs must be added one at a time and fully mixed in, so each addition emulsifies into the warm starch paste. Adding them all at once or while the dough is too hot can cause curdling or a loose batter that won't hold its shape in the fat.

“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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