Skip to main content
Dessert

German Fritters

Stale cake pieces soaked in vanilla milk, coated with egg and breadcrumbs, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

German Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the stale cake pieces in milk or cream flavored with vanilla and sweetened with sugar.

  2. Remove the cake pieces and let them dry slightly on the outside.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip each piece in a well-beaten egg.

  2. Cover the pieces with bread crumbs.

  3. Fry 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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Vanilla + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together497 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Stale cake pieces
Form the base, absorbing the milk mixture to become soft and moist inside.
Milk or cream
Soaks into the cake, adding moisture and richness to the filling.
Egg
Binds the crumbs to the cake pieces and sets to form a crisp coating.
Bread crumbs
Form a crisp outer crust that browns during frying.
Sugar
Sweetens the soaking liquid and promotes browning on the fried surface.

The step that matters

Let the pieces dry slightly before dipping in egg. A surface that is too wet will cause the egg and crumbs to slide off or steam, so the coating will not adhere evenly or crisp well in hot oil.

“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.

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesVanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipes