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Dessert

Frying Batter

A batter made with flour, butter, oil, salt, egg yolk, cider or wine, and folded egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Frying Batter

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix flour, butter, salad oil, salt, and egg yolk until smooth.

  2. Incorporate cider or wine and let it stand.

  3. Just before use, gently fold in the whipped egg whites.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + cidertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Flour + cidertop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together812 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the batter, setting as it cooks and giving body to the coating.
Egg whites
Whipped and folded in, they add air that lightens the batter and makes it crisp and puffy.
Egg yolk
Adds richness and helps bind the batter so it stays smooth and cohesive.
Cider or light-pale french wine
Thins the batter to a coating consistency and adds mild acidity that tenderises the texture.
Butter
Adds fat for flavour and a tender, short texture in the cooked coating.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whites must be folded in gently, just before use, so the air bubbles survive. Overmixing or letting the batter stand after folding deflates them, leaving a denser, less crisp coating.

“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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