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Apple Fkitters

Apple fritters made by dipping apple pieces in butter, then frying in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Apple Fkitters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix sugar, milk, baking powder, butter, and eggs until smooth.

  2. Add flour gradually to create a thin batter.

Fry the apples

  1. Cut apples into small pieces and dip them in butter.

  2. Heat lard in a pan and fry the dipped apple pieces until golden 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during frying.
Flour
Forms the thin batter that coats the apple pieces and sets when fried.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lightens the batter so it puffs slightly when fried.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the coating brown in the hot lard.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the batter and the apple pieces.

The step that matters

Frying the dipped apple pieces. Lard must be hot enough that the batter sets and browns quickly. If the fat is too cool, the coating absorbs oil and turns greasy before it crisps, and the apple inside may stay underdone.

“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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