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Dessert

Plain Fritters

Bread fritters made from grated penny loaf, milk, egg yolks, and sugar, fried in lard and served with sweet sauce and preserves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and sauce match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,147 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Plain Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Grate the crumb of a penny loaf.

  2. Heat 2 cups of milk in a pot over medium heat.

  3. Add the grated bread and beat until smooth.

  4. Let the mixture cool, then stir in 5 egg yolks and 3 ounces of sifted sugar.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a frying pan and drop spoonfuls of the mixture into the hot lard.

  2. Fry until golden brown, then remove and drain on paper towels.

  3. Serve with sweet sauce and preserves.

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. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Milk + saucetop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Penny loaf
Its crumb is grated and soaked into the milk, thickening the batter into a soft base.
Milk
Hydrates the grated bread and makes the batter smooth and spoonable.
Egg yolks
Add richness and fat, and help bind the batter so it sets around the frying heat.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the exterior brown during frying.

The step that matters

Frying the spoonfuls in hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the batter soaks up grease and turns heavy instead of forming a crisp, golden crust. Keeping the fat at a steady frying temperature gives a light interior and even browning.

“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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