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
In a bowl, mix sweet milk, flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt.
Heat the milk until it is slightly warmer than lukewarm.
Slowly add the warm milk to the beaten egg yolks and sugar.
Fold in the flour and beaten egg whites until combined.
Stir in the slices of sour apple.
Fry and serve
Drop spoonfuls of the batter into boiling lard, ensuring each has a piece of apple.
Fry until golden brown and cooked through.
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.
-
Milk + appletop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,104 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
-
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
-
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Sugar + appletop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Flour
- Provides the main structure that holds the fritter together as it sets in the hot fat.
- Eggs
- Egg yolks enrich the batter, and beaten whites are folded in to make it lighter and more tender.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas when heated, helping the batter puff and rise in the fat.
- Sweet milk
- Supplies the liquid that hydrates the flour and gives the batter its moist, soft texture.
- Sour apple
- Adds tartness and moisture, and its sugars brown slightly at the surface while frying.
- Lard
- Conducts heat quickly into the batter, cooking the inside and browning the outside.
The step that matters
Frying in boiling lard. The lard must be hot enough to set the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the batter soaks up fat and turns greasy and heavy instead of crisp and golden.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, egg, 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.
More apple fritters recipes
You might also like
Apple Pudding256 recipes
Apple Cake80 recipes
Apple Meringue75 recipes
Dried Apple Cake51 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.