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 ↓
Peach Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the peaches
Skin the peaches, cut them in half, and remove the stones.
Toss the peaches with caster sugar gently to avoid breaking them.
Make the batter
Stir flour and water gradually with a wooden spoon to make a batter.
Beat the egg whites until stiff, then mix them into the batter along with warmed butter.
Fry and glaze
Heat lard in a frying pan until warm but not too hot.
Dip each peach half in the batter and fry in the lard until lightly browned.
Drain the peaches on a cloth.
Place them cut side down in a baking dish.
Sift sugar over them.
Glaze under a broiler.
Serve
Arrange the peaches in a pyramid on a folded napkin on a hot dish and serve.
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.
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Peach + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together860 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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
- Egg whites
- Whipped until stiff, they lighten the batter and help it puff when fried.
- Flour
- Forms the batter's structure, which coats the peaches and sets during frying.
- Butter
- Adds richness and flavour to the batter.
- Peaches
- The fruit at the centre of the dish, its juices softening slightly as it cooks.
- Caster sugar
- Sweetens the peaches and, sifted on top, helps create a browned glaze.
The step that matters
Frying the battered peaches. Lard that is too hot will brown the batter before the fruit warms through, while lard that is too cool lets the batter soak up oil and turn greasy. Keeping the heat moderate and frying until just lightly browned gives a crisp coating around a warm peach.
Swap the peach
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, egg, butter):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Peachthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, egg, butter. 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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