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Dessert

Banana Fritters

A batter of flour, milk, egg, and bananas is fried into golden fritters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Banana and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,470 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Banana Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix and sift the flour, baking powder, powdered sugar, and salt.

  2. Beat the egg and add the milk, then combine with the dry ingredients.

  3. Add sliced or mashed bananas to the mixture.

Fry and drain

  1. Fry in deep fat until golden brown and drain on paper towels.

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. Banana + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,470 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Banana + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,725 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
Provides the structure that holds the batter together around the bananas.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the fritters puff and turn light.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the hot fat.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it coats the bananas evenly.
Bananas
Add natural sweetness, moisture, and a soft texture inside the fritters.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown as it fries.

The step that matters

Frying in deep fat until golden brown. If the fat is too cool, the fritters absorb excess oil and turn greasy and heavy. If it is too hot, the outside browns before the batter and banana centre cook through. Steady, moderate heat gives a crisp, evenly cooked result.

Swap the banana

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

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

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