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Dessert

Banana Fritters

A batter of flour, eggs, and bananas fried into golden fritters and dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Banana Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine flour, egg yolks, salt, melted lard or butter, and water to form a batter.

  2. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites and banana strips.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat oil in a frying pan and drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot oil.

  2. Fry until golden brown on both sides.

  3. Remove from oil and dust with powdered sugar before serving.

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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. Butter + bananatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + buttertop 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the batter together as it fries.
Egg whites
Beaten to stiff peaks, they add airy lightness to the batter.
Egg yolks
Enrich the batter and help bind it, adding richness and a tender texture.
Bananas
Add natural sweetness, moisture and flavor to the fritters.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiff egg whites trap air that gives the fritters lightness. Folding gently, rather than stirring, keeps that air from deflating and leaves the batter fluffy when it hits the hot oil.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Bananathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, butter, sugar. 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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