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Dessert

Spanish Fritters

A sweet lemon fritter made with wine, cinnamon, cloves, butter, flour, sugar, eggs, and brandy, fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spanish Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine grated lemons, white wine, cinnamon, and cloves in a saucepan and boil for a few minutes.

  2. Remove the cinnamon and cloves, then add butter to the saucepan and bring to a boil.

  3. Stir in flour and sugar, mixing continuously for a few minutes.

  4. Remove from heat and beat in eggs one at a time until smooth.

  5. Add brandy and mix well.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a saucepan.

  2. Drop batter by teaspoonfuls into the hot lard.

  3. Fry until golden brown, then remove and place on a sieve to drain.

  4. Dust with powdered sugar.

  5. Glaze with a salamander.

  6. Serve warm.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Lemon + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set the batter into a smooth, structured mixture that puffs and holds its shape when fried.
Flour
Thickens the butter and liquid mixture so the batter can hold its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the batter a tender texture.
Lemons
Provide bright, aromatic lemon flavour through the zest and juice in the batter.
White wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the lemon base.

The step that matters

Beating in the eggs. Eggs must be added one at a time and beaten until smooth. Adding them too fast or while the mixture is too hot can scramble them, leaving lumps and a batter that does not emulsify or puff well when fried.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, white wine, cinnamon, butter, flour, sugar, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, white wine, cinnamon, butter, flour, sugar, egg. 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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