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Jolly Boys Fritters

A thick batter fritter made with rye meal, whole-wheat flour, cornmeal, sugar, cinnamon, salt, eggs, molasses, and cold water, fried until brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Rye and wheat match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 404 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Jolly Boys Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix rye meal, whole-wheat flour, cornmeal, sugar, cinnamon, and salt.

  2. Add beaten eggs and molasses, then enough cold water to create a very thick batter.

  3. Beat the mixture well and let it sit for at least 1 hour.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat oil in a kettle.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of batter into the hot oil and brown on both sides.

  3. Remove with a skimmer and serve hot.

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. Rye + wheattop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together404 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Wheat + cinnamontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together537 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  3. Rye + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,320 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Rye + cinnamontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Rye meal
Provides the main body and earthy flavour of the fritter.
Whole-wheat flour
Adds structure and a nutty flavour to the batter.
Cornmeal
Adds a slightly gritty texture and helps the fritters brown.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help hold the fritters together.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls of batter into the hot oil and brown on both sides. If the oil is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisping. Turning only once after the underside sets helps the fritters brown evenly and hold 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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