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Dessert

Apple Fritters

Apple fritters are fried apple pieces coated in a thick batter made from flour, condensed milk, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Apple Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine flour, salt, baking soda, and nutmeg.

  2. Mix in enough condensed milk to create a thick batter.

  3. Dissolve tartaric acid in a little water and add to the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Take a piece of apple and dip it in 1 tablespoon of batter.

  2. Drop the batter-coated apple into hot fat and fry until golden.

  3. Dip the spoon in cold water before each fritter to prevent sticking.

  4. Serve hot, sprinkled with crushed sugar.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Condensed milk + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Nutmeg + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + condensed milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together410 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure of the batter that coats and holds the apple.
Baking soda
Reacts with the tartaric acid to release gas, helping the fritters rise and lighten.
Tartaric acid
Reacts with baking soda to produce carbon dioxide bubbles for a lighter texture.
Condensed milk
Adds sweetness, moisture and fat, and helps the batter brown as it fries.
Apple
Provides the fruit filling, softening and turning sweet as it cooks inside the batter.

The step that matters

Dropping the batter-coated apple into hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisping; the carbon dioxide from the baking soda and acid also escapes quickly, so the fritters stay flat and heavy.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, nutmeg, condensed milk, sugar. 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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