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Dessert

Fritters

A variety of fried batter-based snacks, including apple, potato, and Spanish versions, served with butter, wine, and sugar sauces.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 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

Fry the apple and fruit fritters

  1. Drop a small quantity of pancake batter into a pan.

  2. Add sliced and cored apples to the batter.

  3. Fry each apple slice.

  4. Add currants or thinly sliced lemon to the batter.

Make the bread fritters

  1. Cut a French roll into finger-thick lengths.

  2. Soak the cut pieces in a mixture of cream, nutmeg, sugar, pounded cinnamon, and 1 egg.

  3. Fry the soaked pieces until golden brown.

  4. Serve the fried pieces with butter, wine, and sugar sauce.

Make the potato fritters

  1. Boil 2 large potatoes.

  2. Scrape the boiled potatoes finely.

  3. Mix the scraped potatoes with 4 egg yolks, 3 egg whites, 1 large spoonful of cream, 1 large spoonful of sweet wine, lemon juice, and nutmeg.

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

  5. Heat fine lard in a pan.

  6. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot lard to fry.

  7. Serve with a sauce made of white wine, lemon juice, 2 teaspoons of 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
Egg yolks and whites give the potato batter lightness and structure when set by frying.
Potatoes
Mashed cooked potato adds body and moisture to the batter.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture to the soaking mixture and potato batter.
Butter
Adds fat and flavor to the fried pieces and browns during frying.

The step that matters

Beat the potato batter for at least 30 minutes until light. Long beating incorporates air into the egg and potato mixture, which gives the fritters lightness once the batter sets in hot lard.

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.

More fritters recipes

Corn 396Apple 377Oyster 129Potato 119Clam 113Rice 108 See all 48 →

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