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Dessert

Apple Fritters

Apple fritters are fried apple slices coated in a sweet batter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apple Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Sprinkle apple slices with sugar and cinnamon or nutmeg, and set aside.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the yolks of the eggs, then add 1 tablespoon sugar and ½ cup sweet milk.

  2. Mix in enough flour to create a thick batter.

  3. Melt 1 tablespoon butter and add it to the batter.

  4. Beat the egg whites until stiff and fold them into the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip each apple slice into the batter, ensuring it is well coated.

  2. Quickly drop the coated slices into hot vegetable oil or cocoa butter, enough to float them.

  3. Fry until the apples are soft and the fritters are light brown on both sides.

  4. Drain the fritters and trim any excess batter.

  5. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve hot.

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. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon 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

Apples
Provide the fruit body and sweet flavor, softening as they fry inside the batter.
Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter and whipped whites add lightness and structure.
Flour
Forms the thick batter that coats the apple slices and sets around them when fried.
Sweet milk
Moistens the batter and helps it bind to the flour.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the batter for flavor and tenderness.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Beaten egg whites trap air that gives the batter lift. Overmixing deflates them, leaving dense fritters.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, egg, milk, flour, butter, cocoa 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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