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Dessert

Cream Fritters

A sweet, almond‑infused milk custard fried into strips and dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and orange are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,125 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Cream Fritters

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the almond cream

  1. Boil the milk in a pot.

  2. Dissolve cornstarch in a little cold water, then add to the milk to thicken.

  3. Add sugar, butter, salt, and almonds to the mixture and boil for 5 minutes.

  4. Stir in the beaten eggs, then spread the mixture about 1 inch thick on an oiled platter.

Shape and coat

  1. Allow to cool, then cut into strips 1 inch wide and 3 inches long.

  2. Roll each strip in fine crumbs, dip in beaten egg, and roll again in crumbs.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the strips in boiling lard until golden brown.

  2. Drain on brown paper, dust 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. Almond + orangetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  4. Milk + orangetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,696 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Milk + almondtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,800 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the cream and, beaten, form the coating that helps crumbs stick.
Cornstarch
Thickens the milk into a firm, sliceable cream.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the cornstarch thickens into the cream.
Almonds
Add nutty flavour and body to the cream.
Sugar
Sweetens the cream and adds flavour.
Butter
Adds richness and fat for a tender texture.

The step that matters

Cool the cream until firm before cutting. The cream must set fully before it is cut and coated. Cutting it warm makes the strips soft and likely to break apart in the crumbs and egg, and in hot lard.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, butter, almond, 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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