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Dessert

Banana Fritters

A fried batter of flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, milk, egg, and sliced bananas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt.

  2. Add enough milk to create a stiff batter.

  3. Stir in the beaten egg and sliced bananas.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into very hot deep lard.

  2. Fry until light brown, then drain and serve.

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together around the banana.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the fritters puff and turn light.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds richness and structure as it sets.
Bananas
Add moisture and natural sweetness, and soften as they cook inside the batter.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form a stiff batter that clings to the bananas.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls into very hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and becomes greasy instead of crisping. Very hot fat sets the outside quickly, keeping the fritters light and browning them evenly.

Swap the banana

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, 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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