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Dessert

Banana Fritters

A fried batter of mashed bananas, egg, sugar, milk, baking powder, and flour, served warm with syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Banana Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mash the bananas in a bowl.

  2. Add the egg, sugar, sweet milk, and baking powder; mix well.

  3. Gradually add flour until the batter is stiff.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a deep pan over medium‑high heat.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of batter into the hot lard.

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

  4. Serve warm with 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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Banana + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,470 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Bananas
Provide the main flavor and moisture, and their starch helps bind the batter.
Egg
Adds structure and binds the batter so the fritters hold together.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the fritters rise and turn light.
Flour
Gives the batter body and structure so it stays stiff enough to drop by spoonfuls.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the outside brown during frying.

The step that matters

Fry until golden brown. The hot lard must be hot enough when the batter goes in, or the fritters absorb excess fat and turn greasy. Frying until golden brown means the outside has set and browned, which gives a crisp exterior and a cooked interior.

Swap the banana

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

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

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