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Spanish Fritters

Fritters made from soaked French roll pieces, fried and served with butter, wine, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spanish Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the crumb of the French roll into finger-thick lengths.

Soak and fry

  1. Soak the pieces in cream, nutmeg, sugar, cinnamon, and egg until well soaked.

  2. Fry the soaked pieces until they are a nice brown.

Serve

  1. Serve with butter, wine, and sugar.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

French roll
Its crumb absorbs the custard and becomes the body of each fritter.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture so the soaked bread stays tender inside.
Egg
Binds the soaking liquid so it coats the bread and helps it set when fried.
Sugar
Sweetens the soak and promotes browning in the frying pan.
Cinnamon
Adds warm aroma to the soaking mixture.

The step that matters

Fry the soaked pieces until they are a nice brown. Sugar in the soak caramelises and browns in hot fat, so the surface turns golden while the egg sets inside. Too low a heat leaves them pale and soggy, while too high a heat scorches the sugar before the centre cooks.

“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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