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Dessert

Vanilla Fritters

A sweet fried batter made with flour, egg, vanilla, and butter, dusted with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Vanilla Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, macaroon crumbs, salt, egg yolk, and melted butter.

  2. Gradually add lukewarm water and mix until smooth.

  3. Fold in whisked egg whites and vanilla.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat a saucepan half full of boiling fat.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of batter into the fat and fry until golden brown.

  3. Remove fritters and drain on clean kitchen paper.

  4. Serve piled high on a doily and dust with sifted sugar.

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. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the batter together as it fries.
Egg whites
Whisked into the batter to add lightness and help the fritters puff.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the batter into a smooth, cohesive mixture.
Baking powder
Releases gas during frying, helping the fritters rise and become airy.
Macaroon crumbs
Add sweetness and an almond-like flavour and a slightly tender crumb.

The step that matters

Fold in the whisked egg whites. Folding gently keeps the whisked egg whites airy; stirring vigorously knocks out the air, so the fritters rise less and turn out denser.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Lemonfits less well

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