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Dessert

Delicious Fritters

A batter of flour, eggs, and butter is fried to make golden fritters, optionally with chopped apples.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,052 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Delicious Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Boil water and butter for a few minutes.

  2. Stir in enough flour to thicken to the consistency of mashed potatoes.

  3. Pour the mixture into a bowl and beat in the eggs one at a time.

  4. Add a little salt and nutmeg.

Fry

  1. Fry in hot lard until golden brown.

  2. For apple fritters, add chopped ripe apples to the batter and fry immediately in boiling lard until light brown.

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. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Nutmeg + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Starch thickens the boiled water and butter into a batter that holds its shape.
Eggs
Proteins set when heated, giving the fritters structure and lift.
Butter
Fat adds richness and a tender crumb to the batter.
Lard
Hot fat transfers heat quickly, browning the outside of the fritters.
Ripe apples
Chopped fruit adds moisture and sweetness to apple fritters.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard until golden brown. Lard must be hot enough to set the batter's outside quickly. If it is too cool, the fritters soak up grease and turn heavy instead of crisp and golden.

Swap the apple

The recipe marks apple as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, flour, potato, nutmeg, buttermilk):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, flour, potato, nutmeg, buttermilk. 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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