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Plain Fritters

A batter of eggs, flour, milk, salt, and baking powder fried into golden discs, served with powdered sugar, maple syrup, or vinegar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Plain Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs.

  2. Add flour, milk, salt, and baking powder; mix until smooth.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat oil in a pan over medium heat.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of batter into the hot oil and fry until golden brown.

  3. Remove and drain on paper towels.

  4. Serve warm with powdered sugar, maple syrup, or vinegar sauce.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the hot oil.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the fritter together when fried.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the batter a smooth, pourable texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the fritters puff and turn light inside.

The step that matters

Frying in hot oil. If the oil is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisping. If it is too hot, the outside browns before the inside cooks through. Steady medium heat gives golden fritters that are cooked in the middle.

“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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