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Queen Fritters

Fried batter made from water, butter, flour, and eggs, cooked in cottolene or lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Queen Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Boil the water and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Add the flour while boiling and stir rapidly until it forms a ball.

  3. Remove from heat and beat the mixture hard.

  4. Let the mixture cool.

Add the eggs

  1. Add one unbeaten egg and beat until well combined.

  2. Add the remaining eggs, beating thoroughly after each addition.

Fry

  1. Heat cottolene in a kettle.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot fat and fry 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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Flour
Forms the starch and gluten structure that holds the batter together as it cooks.
Eggs
Add structure and moisture, and help the fritters puff and set when fried.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, softening the dough and contributing flavour.
Water
Turns the butter into a hot liquid so the flour can gelatinise into a smooth paste.

The step that matters

Beat the mixture hard and let it cool before adding the eggs. Beating the hot flour paste develops a smooth, cohesive dough. Adding eggs to a dough that is still too hot can scramble them and cause the mixture to split, so it must cool first.

“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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