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Dessert

Lemon Fritters

A fried dough cake flavored with lemon, nutmeg, cinnamon, and powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Lemon Fritters

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

Lemon Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks with the powdered sugar, salt, lemon peel, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

  2. Gradually add the sweet cream and flour mixed with baking powder, sifting again before stirring.

  3. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites gently.

  4. Work the mixture into a soft dough, just stiff enough to roll out.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out the dough to about ½ inch thick and cut into small, round cakes using a tumbler.

  2. Fry the cakes in hot butter until golden brown.

Serve

  1. Serve warm with lemon sauce.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Add richness and tenderness, and help bind the batter together.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they lighten the dough and help it rise.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cakes together while frying.
Baking powder
Releases gas during cooking, helping the fritters puff and turn light.
Sweet cream
Adds fat and moisture, making the dough softer and richer.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the fritters brown during frying.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Whipped egg whites trap air that gives the fritters lightness. Stirring or deflating them vigorously knocks out that air, leaving dense cakes.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, cream, flour, butter. 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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