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Dessert

Bread Fritters

Bread fritters made by soaking bread in spiced milk, coating with egg yolks, and frying in butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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

Make the soaking milk

  1. Boil the milk with cinnamon and sugar to taste.

  2. Stir in the rose-water.

Prepare the bread

  1. Cut the bread into circular shapes.

  2. Soak the bread slices in the milk until absorbed.

  3. Drain the soaked bread slices.

  4. Beat the egg yolks well.

  5. Dip the bread slices into the egg yolks.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the slices in butter until golden.

  2. Serve sprinkled with powdered sugar.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

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

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar 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

Milk
Soaks into the bread, softening it and carrying the cinnamon and sugar flavour through.
Slices of bread
Absorbs the milk and sets into a soft interior under a crisp fried crust.
Yolks of eggs
Coat the soaked bread and help it brown and set while frying.
Butter for frying
Conducts heat to brown the surface and adds rich flavour and aroma.
Sugar to taste
Adds sweetness to the soaking milk.

The step that matters

Fry the slices in butter until golden. Butter browns quickly because its milk solids caramelise, so heat that is too high can scorch the surface before the soaked centre cooks through. Moderate heat gives an even golden crust.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits less well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, rose, bread, egg, butter. 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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