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Dessert

Apple Fritters

A fried apple dessert made with a thick batter of flour, baking powder, egg, milk, and salt, served with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar 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

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, egg, and salt.

  2. Add milk gradually until the batter reaches the consistency of thick cream.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip the apple slices into the batter.

  2. Heat lard in a pan and fry the battered apple slices until golden brown.

  3. Sprinkle with granulated sugar before serving.

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. Cream + sugartop 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. Flour + milktop 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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the batter that coats and holds the apple slices.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the batter puff and rise while frying.
Egg
Adds structure and richness, helping the batter set and bind.
Milk
Thins the flour mixture into a thick, coating batter with moisture.
Apples
Provide the main fruit filling, softening slightly as they fry.

The step that matters

Frying the battered apple slices. The lard must be hot enough to brown the batter quickly. If the fat is too cool, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy and heavy before it sets.

Swap the apple

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

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

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