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Dessert

Funnel Cakes

Funnel cakes are fried batter rings made from flour, milk, eggs, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk 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 ↓

Funnel Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

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

  2. Add the warm milk and beaten eggs, stirring until smooth.

Fry and drain

  1. Heat the lard in a deep pan.

  2. Using a funnel, pour the batter into the hot lard, starting in the center and spiraling outward to form rings.

  3. Fry until golden brown, then remove 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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the batter once it sets in the hot fat.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter hold its shape while frying.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the batter so it puffs and fries up airy.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the batter a fluid, pourable consistency.
Lard
Conducts heat to fry the batter, browning its surface and crisping the edges.

The step that matters

Pouring the batter into the hot lard. The lard must be hot enough to set the batter immediately and brown it; if it is too cool, the batter absorbs fat, turns greasy, and the rings lose their shape.

“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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