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Fritters

A batter of eggs, milk, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt fried into golden cakes, served with lemon or maple syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Fritters

Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the eggs and milk.

  2. Add the cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt.

  3. Gradually mix in the flour until smooth.

  4. Let the batter sit for 1 hour to allow the flour to swell.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls of batter into hot fat to fry until golden brown.

  2. Serve with lemon juice and sugar, or melted maple sugar, or hot maple syrup with a little butter.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

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

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

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 to the fritters.
Flour
Provides the main structure as its starch sets during frying.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture to the batter.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the batter so the baking soda reacts and helps the fritters rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the batter to produce gas for lightness.

The step that matters

Letting the batter rest. Resting gives the flour time to absorb liquid and swell, which thickens the batter and improves texture. Skipping the rest can leave the fritters dense and gummy.

“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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