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Dessert

Fritters

A sweet batter fritter made with eggs, milk, flour, almond paste, orange flower or cinnamon water, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Fritters

Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat and strain 2 eggs, then mix with ½ cup new milk and ½ cup flour to make a thick batter.

  2. Fry the batter in hot lard until pale.

  3. Pound the fried batter until smooth, then add 4 egg yolks, 2 egg whites, 1 tablespoon orange‑flower water or cinnamon‑water, 1 ounce almond paste, 2 ounces sugar, and ¼ nutmeg. Pound until you have a smooth batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat a large stewpan half full of fine lard until hot.

  2. Drop the batter into the lard in large nut‑sized portions.

  3. Turn them as they brown and remove to clean paper when done.

  4. Serve immediately.

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. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and, with the yolks and whites, give the fritters structure and richness.
Flour
Thickens the egg and milk mixture into a batter that holds its shape when fried.
New milk
Adds moisture and loosens the flour into a workable batter.
Blanched almonds
Provide the main flavour and fat, adding body to the pounded batter.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the fritters brown as they fry.

The step that matters

Fry the batter in hot lard until pale. Frying the first batter until pale sets its structure before the rest is added. Lard that is too cool lets the batter soak up fat and turn heavy, while lard that is too hot browns the outside before the centre cooks.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour, almond, sugar, nutmeg. 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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