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Batter Fritters

A batter fritter made with flour, milk, butter, eggs, baking powder, and salt, fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Batter Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a pan, combine the flour, then set it in a larger pan with warm water.

  2. In a saucepan, heat the milk, butter, and salt until the butter melts, then remove from heat.

  3. Stir half of the milk mixture into the flour until smooth, then add the remaining milk mixture.

  4. Beat the egg yolks and stir them into the batter, then add the baking powder.

Finish and fry

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with 1 tablespoon of sugar until stiff, then fold them into the batter.

  2. Fry the batter immediately in hot lard until golden brown.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter, and whipped whites lighten it and help it puff when fried.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the fritters rise and turn light.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the fritters together as they cook.
Milk
Provides liquid that hydrates the flour and adds richness and browning.
Butter
Adds fat that softens the texture and adds flavour to the batter.

The step that matters

Fold in the whipped egg whites and fry immediately. Whipped egg whites hold air that gives lift, and baking powder starts releasing gas once mixed with liquid. Delaying the frying lets the batter lose air and rise less, so the fritters turn out denser.

“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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