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Peach Fritters

Fried peach halves coated in a sweet batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Peach Fritters

Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Peach Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the peaches

  1. Peel the peaches, split each in half, remove the stones, and dust with powdered sugar.

Make the batter

  1. Whisk the butter in a bowl until creamy, then gradually add the sugar.

  2. Beat the yolks of two eggs, add nutmeg, cold water, and rum, and stir into the butter mixture.

  3. Beat the yolks of three eggs, then mix in milk, salt, and flour until smooth.

Fry and drain

  1. Dip each peach half into the batter, fry in hot oil 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.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Peach + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together781 recipes

    Shared aroma: phellandrene (minty).

  4. Peach + rumtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together84 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Peach + nutmegtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together342 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Peaches
Provide the fruit that softens and sweetens inside the crisp batter coating.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and help the batter set and bind when fried.
Flour
Forms the structure of the batter that crisps and browns in hot oil.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, softening the base of the batter.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps it brown when fried.
Milk
Adds moisture and tenderness to the batter.

The step that matters

Frying the battered peaches. Oil must be hot enough to set and brown the batter quickly. If it is too cool, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy before the peach softens and the coating turns golden.

Swap the peach

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

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

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