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Apple Fritters

Apple fritters are fried apple slices coated in batter and dusted with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apple Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Boil the cinnamon in water and let it cool.

  2. Peel and core the apples, then cut them into round slices.

  3. Soak the apple slices in the cinnamon water for at least 30 minutes.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip each apple slice in pancake batter and fry in lard or clarified dripping until golden.

  2. Drain the fritters, dust with sugar, and serve hot.

  3. For a different presentation, drop batter in the pan, place an apple slice on top, and cover with more batter before frying.

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. Cinnamon + appletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Apples
Provide the fruit filling that softens and turns sweet-tart when fried.
Flour
Forms the batter coating that becomes crisp and golden when fried.
Lard or clarified dripping
Conducts heat for frying and browns the batter surface, adding richness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness on the outside of the hot fritters.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma that infuses the apple slices through soaking.

The step that matters

Fry in hot fat until golden. If the fat is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy and heavy instead of crisping. Frying at a steady temperature sets the coating quickly while the apple cooks through.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, flour, 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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