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Dessert

Banana Fritters

Fried batter made from mashed bananas, flour, egg, milk, and baking powder, dusted with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Banana and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,470 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Banana Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mash the bananas until creamy.

  2. Add the egg and milk, mixing well.

  3. Sift the cracker flour with the baking powder and incorporate into the mixture.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a pan over medium‑high heat.

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

  3. Remove from the pan and dust with sugar before serving.

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. Banana + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,470 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Banana + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,725 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Bananas
Provide the main flavour and moisture, giving the batter its body and sweetness.
Cracker flour
Forms the structure of the batter so the fritters hold their shape while frying.
Egg
Binds the batter together and helps give the fritters a set, tender interior.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter to a spoonable consistency.
Baking powder
Releases gas during frying so the fritters rise and become light.
Lard
Conducts heat to crisp and brown the outside of the fritters.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy before the outside sets. Dropping the batter into properly hot fat seals the surface quickly and produces even golden browning.

Swap the banana

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, milk, 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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