Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Bread Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Beat the eggs, sugar, and cinnamon together in a bowl.
Cut the bread slices in half, keeping the crusts on.
Soak the bread in the egg mixture until fully absorbed.
Fry and serve
Heat butter in a frying pan over medium heat.
Carefully place the soaked bread in the pan and fry until light brown on both sides, using a spatula to turn.
For the sauce, mix the sugar and a little wine.
Serve the fritters with the wine sauce.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,655 recipes
Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,466 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 bread to the batter and set into a custard-like coating when fried.
- Bread
- Forms the base of the fritters, soaking up the egg mixture to become tender inside.
- Rich sweet milk
- Adds moisture and richness to the egg mixture, helping the bread soak and soften.
- Butter
- Fat for frying that browns the outside of the fritters and adds flavor.
The step that matters
Soak the bread until fully absorbed. If the bread is under-soaked, dry patches stay raw inside the fritter, while over-soaked bread turns soggy and falls apart in the pan. The bread should be saturated but still hold its shape.
Swap the cinnamon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, milk, bread, butter, sauce, wine):
- Cinnamonthe original
- Nutmegfits about as well
- Capersfits less well
- Tarragonfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, milk, bread, butter, sauce, wine. 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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