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Dessert

Apple Fritters

A batter of egg, flour, sugar, ginger, and milk is mixed with apple slices, fried, and dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,424 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Apple Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg.

  2. Add flour, sifted sugar, ginger, and enough milk to create a smooth batter.

  3. Fold in the apple slices until coated.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat oil in a frying pan.

  2. Using a spoon, drop spoonfuls of the batter with apple slices into the hot oil.

  3. Fry until golden brown, then drain on a sieve.

  4. Dust with powdered 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. Ginger + appletop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 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

Egg
Binds the batter and helps it set firmly when fried.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together around the apple.
Apple
Supplies the fruit filling, its moisture softening as the fritter cooks.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the fritter brown as it fries.

The step that matters

Frying in hot oil. If the oil is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisping. Hot oil sets the outside quickly and gives golden browning, so heat the oil fully before dropping in the batter.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Clovefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, sugar, milk, apple. 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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