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Dessert

Apple Fritters.— No. 1

Apple fritters are small fried cakes made with a batter of milk, eggs, flour, and diced apples, served warm with powdered sugar and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Apple Fritters.— No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Make a batter with the milk, eggs, and enough flour to achieve a not very stiff consistency.

  2. Pare and core the apples, then chop them into pieces about the size of small peas.

  3. Mix the chopped apples into the batter thoroughly.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a deep pan and drop spoonfuls of the batter with apples into the hot lard.

  2. Fry until golden brown, then remove and drain on paper towels.

  3. Serve warm, dusted with powdered sugar and accompanied by cream.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour 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 lard.
Flour
Forms the body of the batter so the fritters hold together when fried.
Milk
Thins the flour and eggs into a batter and adds moisture to the crumb.
Apples
Provide moisture, sweetness and tender pieces inside the crisp fried batter.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and gives the outside a golden, crisp browning.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the batter soaks up fat and turns greasy instead of crisp. Too hot, and the outside browns before the apple pieces and batter cook through.

Swap the apple

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

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

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