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Dessert

Puff Fritters

A batter of milk, flour, eggs, and cinnamon fried in lard, served with a sweet wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Puff Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Boil the milk in a pot.

  2. Quickly stir in the flour until fully combined, then remove from heat.

  3. Let the mixture cool, then stir in the beaten eggs and cinnamon.

  4. Set the batter in a warm place for 4 hours.

Fry the fritters

  1. Heat the lard in a pan.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of batter into the hot lard to fry each fritter. Dip your spoon in cold water frequently to prevent sticking.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, mix milk and flour in a pot over low heat until thickened.

  2. Add wine, sugar, nutmeg, and butter to the sauce, stirring until combined.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 batter and add structure and richness as they set in the hot lard.
Flour
Forms the starch structure that holds the batter together and thickens the sauce.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and gives the batter moisture.
Lard
Conducts heat for frying and gives the fritters a crisp, browned exterior.

The step that matters

Dip your spoon in cold water frequently. Batter is sticky and hot fat can cook its surface quickly, so a cold spoon keeps the batter from clinging and helps each fritter release cleanly into the lard.

“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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