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Dessert

Apple Fritters

A fried batter of apples, flour, milk, and eggs, served with maple syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Apple Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Heat the milk until slightly warmer than room temperature.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and mix in the sugar and salt.

  3. Gradually add the warm milk to the yolk mixture.

  4. Sift the baking powder into the flour, then rub in the melted butter.

  5. Combine the flour mixture with the milk mixture, then fold in the beaten egg whites.

  6. Gently fold in the chopped apples.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop large spoonfuls of batter into hot lard and fry until light brown.

  2. Remove and drain on paper towels.

  3. Serve with maple syrup or sugar syrup.

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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

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

  3. Apple + maple syruptop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together272 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and whipped whites lighten it for a tender interior.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the fritter together while it fries.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the fritters rise and become light.
Tart apples
Add moisture and a tart flavor that balances the sweetness of the batter.
Sweet milk
Hydrates the flour and forms the liquid base of the batter.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the batter.

The step that matters

Frying the batter in hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the fritters absorb excess fat and turn greasy and dense. If it is too hot, the outside browns before the centre cooks through. Keeping the fat at a steady frying temperature gives a crisp exterior and a cooked interior.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

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