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Batter Fritters

A batter-based fried dish made with flour, milk, eggs, butter, baking powder, and salt.

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

Make the batter

  1. Combine the flour in a bowl and set it over a pan of warm water.

  2. Heat the milk, butter, and salt in a saucepan until the butter melts.

  3. Remove from heat and stir half of the mixture into the flour until smooth.

  4. Add the remaining milk mixture and stir until combined.

  5. Beat the egg yolks and mix them in, then add the baking powder.

  6. Beat the egg whites with 1 tablespoon sugar until stiff peaks form, then fold them into the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry spoonfuls of the batter in hot lard until golden brown.

  2. Serve with a wine 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. 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

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the fritters together as they cook.
Eggs
Add richness and structure, and the whites lighten the batter when beaten.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the fritters rise and turn light.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and tenderness to the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Stiff whites hold air that lightens the batter. Overmixing or deflating them makes the fritters dense, so fold gently until just combined.

“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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