Skip to main content
Dessert

Apple Fritters. Beignets De Pommes

Apple fritters made by soaking apple quarters in brandy, lemon peel, and cinnamon, then coating in light paste and frying.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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. Beignets De Pommes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Cut the apples into quarters and remove the cores.

  2. Soak the apple quarters in brandy with lemon peel and cinnamon.

  3. Drain the apples and dip them into the light paste.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the apples in a pan until golden brown.

  2. Drain on a cloth and place on a serving dish.

  3. Dust with sifted sugar and glaze in the oven or with a hot poker 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. Apple + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Rennet apples
Provide the fruit that softens and becomes sweet-tart when fried.
Light paste (pâte à frire)
Forms a thin coating that crisps and browns around the apple when fried.
Brandy
Flavours the apples during soaking, adding aroma to the fruit.

The step that matters

Draining the apples before dipping. Surface moisture left on the soaked apple prevents the batter from clinging evenly and can make the coating soggy or slide off in hot oil.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, brandy, cinnamon, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Apricotfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, brandy, cinnamon, sugar. 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.

More apple fritters recipes

Potato 3 See all 377 →

You might also like

Apple PuddingApple Pudding256 recipesLemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipes