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Dessert

Apple Fritters

A batter of eggs, cream, wine, ale, spices, and apples fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,324 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Apple Fritters

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the yolks of 8 eggs and the whites of 4 together.

  2. Strain the mixture into a pan.

  3. Heat 1 quart of cream until it is hot but bearable to touch.

  4. Add 2 cups of sack and ¾ pint of ale to the cream and mix well.

  5. Let the mixture cool.

  6. Combine it with the egg mixture, beating well.

  7. Add nutmeg, ginger, salt, and enough flour to make a thick batter.

  8. Fold in sliced or scraped apples.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry spoonfuls of the batter in hot oil until golden brown.

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. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Ginger + appletop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,424 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Wine + appletop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,207 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Nutmeg + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Enrich the batter and help it set and brown when fried.
Egg whites
Add lightness and help the batter puff and hold its shape.
Cream
Adds richness and fat, giving the batter a softer, smoother texture.
Flour
Thickens the batter so it holds together around the apples.
Apples
Provide fruit and moisture that cook inside the crisp batter.

The step that matters

Frying the batter in hot oil. If the oil is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of setting into a crisp golden crust. Frying until golden brown also ensures the batter is cooked through.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cream, wine, nutmeg, ginger, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, wine, nutmeg, ginger, flour. 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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