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Dessert

Lemon Fritters

A fried batter of grated bread, suet, sugar, flour, eggs, and lemon zest and juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Lemon Fritters

Why it works: Bread and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

Lemon Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the grated bread, minced beef suet, powdered sugar, and flour.

  2. Add the whisked eggs, grated lemon rind, and lemon juice.

  3. If needed, stir in a spoonful or two of milk or cream for consistency.

Fry

  1. Fry the mixture in small fritters for 5 to 6 minutes 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Beef + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,759 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanal (fruit).

  3. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and help set the fritters as they cook.
Beef suet
Adds fat, giving the fritters a rich texture and moisture.
Grated bread
Provides the bulk and structure of the fritters.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the fritters brown when fried.
Lemon rind
Contributes concentrated lemon aroma from the oils in the peel.

The step that matters

Fry until golden brown. Frying in small fritters for the stated time lets the outside brown and set while the inside cooks through. Sugar in the batter browns quickly, so the heat should be moderate to avoid scorching before the centre is cooked.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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