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Fritter Batter

A batter of flour, baking powder, salt, eggs, and fruit pieces fried in lard and dusted with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Fritter Batter

Why it works: Flour and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Fritter Batter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

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

  2. Add the beaten eggs and stir until combined.

  3. Fold in the fruit pieces.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a deep pan until boiling.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot lard.

  3. Fry until golden brown, then drain in a colander.

  4. Dust with fine sugar and serve immediately.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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 that holds the fritters together.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set firm and hold its shape while frying.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the fritters puff and become light.
Fruit
Adds moisture, sweetness and flavor pockets within the fried batter.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot lard.. The lard must be hot enough that the batter sets and browns quickly on contact. If it is too cool, the fritters absorb excess fat and turn greasy and dense instead of crisp and golden.

“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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