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Dessert

Banana Fritters

A batter of flour, milk, eggs, and banana bits fried in lard until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and banana are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,470 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Banana Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the flour and baking powder.

  2. In another bowl, whisk together the milk and eggs.

  3. Add the milk mixture to the flour and mix until smooth.

  4. Fold in the banana bits gently.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a deep pan until boiling.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot lard and fry until golden brown.

  3. Remove and drain on paper towels 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. Milk + bananatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,470 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + bananatop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,725 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the batter once hydrated and mixed.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during frying.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture to the batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas when heated, helping the fritters rise and become light.
Bananas
Add sweetness, moisture and banana flavor to the batter.

The step that matters

Frying the batter in hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the batter absorbs fat and turns greasy instead of crisping. Dropping spoonfuls into very hot fat sets the outside quickly, so the fritters brown well and stay light inside.

Swap the banana

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, 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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