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Fritters

A batter-based fried snack that can include apples, potatoes, or Spanish-style ingredients, served with a wine and sugar sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 20 ingredients
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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 ↓

Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Prepare any pancake batter.

  2. Drop small quantities of batter into a pan.

Fry the fritters

  1. For apple fritters, add sliced and cored apples to the batter.

  2. Fry each apple slice.

  3. For Spanish fritters, cut French roll into finger-thick lengths.

  4. Soak the lengths in cream, nutmeg, sugar, cinnamon, and egg.

  5. Fry until golden brown.

  6. For potato fritters, boil and scrape 2 large potatoes.

  7. Mix the potatoes with 4 beaten egg yolks and 3 beaten egg whites.

  8. Add 1 large spoonful of cream, 1 large spoonful of sweet wine, lemon juice, and nutmeg.

  9. Beat the batter for at least 30 minutes until light.

  10. Heat fine lard in a pan.

  11. Drop spoonfuls of batter into the lard.

  12. Fry the batter.

Serve

  1. Serve with a sauce made of white wine, lemon juice, peach-leaf or almond-water, and warmed white sugar.

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

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  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

Eggs
Beaten yolks and whites add structure and lightness to the potato batter as they set in hot fat.
Potatoes
Boiled and scraped potatoes give the potato fritters body and a soft, tender interior.
Butter
Fat that carries flavour and helps the batter brown in the pan.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the batter and soaking mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the exterior colour as the fritters fry.
Apple
Adds moisture and fruity sweetness, cooking to tender slices inside the batter.

The step that matters

Beat the batter for at least 30 minutes until light. Long beating incorporates air and develops a light, airy texture. Under-beating leaves the batter dense, so the fritters rise less and turn out heavy.

Swap the currant

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, butter, cream, nutmeg, sugar, cinnamon, 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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