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Dessert

French Fritters

A batter of eggs, flour, milk, salt, cinnamon, lemon peel, and citron is fried and dusted with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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French Fritters

Why it works: Cinnamon and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

French Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Break the eggs into a bowl and add the flour.

  2. Work in the milk and salt until well combined.

  3. Stir in the cinnamon, lemon peel, and minced citron.

Cook and fry

  1. Grease a saucepan with butter and pour in the mixture.

  2. Cook until firm, then remove and cut into pieces 3‑4 inches long and 1 inch wide.

  3. Notch the ends of each piece, fry until golden, and serve dusted with sifted 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.

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.

  1. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Cinnamon and sugar 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and set into a firm structure when cooked.
Flour
Provides body so the mixture holds its shape when cut and fried.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the batter.
Lemon peel
Adds aromatic citrus flavour to the batter.

The step that matters

Cook until firm before cutting. The mixture must be fully set in the saucepan before it is removed and cut. If it is undercooked it will be too soft to hold its shape, and the pieces may break or stick during frying.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, flour, milk, cinnamon, butter, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, milk, cinnamon, butter, sugar. 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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