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Dessert

Apple Fritters

Apple fritters are fried cakes made with apples, flour, eggs, milk, sugar, baking powder, and lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,104 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Apple Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine sweet milk, sugar, and beaten egg yolks.

  2. In another bowl, mix flour and baking powder.

  3. Combine the wet and dry ingredients.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites and chopped apples.

Fry

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

  2. Drop spoonfuls of batter into the hot lard 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. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together16,478 recipes

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

Milk and flour 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and whites, folded in, lighten it for a tender texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the fritters rise and become light.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it fries.
Tart apples
Add moisture and a tangy flavor that contrasts with the sweet batter.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls of batter into the hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the batter absorbs fat and turns greasy and heavy; if too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks. Steady medium-high heat gives a crisp, golden exterior with a cooked interior.

Swap the apple

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

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

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