Why it works: Apple and brandy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,291 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Apple Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the apples
Cut the apples into thin rounds and remove the cores and skin.
Place the apple slices in a dish and pour brandy over them.
Sprinkle sugar and grated lemon rind on top and let them sit for an hour.
Fry and serve
Half fill a saucepan with clarified dripping and heat until blue smoke rises.
Dip each apple slice into the batter, then carefully place it in the hot fat.
Fry until crisp and lightly browned, turning with a fork as needed.
Remove from the fat and drain on kitchen paper, then sift sugar on top 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.
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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Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,291 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,551 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Apple + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together16,478 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Brandy + sugartop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together11,939 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Apple and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 16,478 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
- Apples
- Form the main body of the fritter and soften into tender fruit when fried.
- Brandy
- Adds a boozy aroma and flavour to the apple slices during their soak.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the apples and helps them caramelise and brown in the fat.
- Clarified dripping
- Heats to transfer heat evenly, crisping the batter and cooking the apples through.
- Batter
- Coats the apple slices and fries to a crisp, golden outer layer.
The step that matters
Heating the fat until blue smoke rises. The fat must be hot enough to crisp the batter quickly. If it is too cool, the batter absorbs fat and turns greasy, and the apple cooks unevenly before the coating sets.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (apple, brandy, sugar):
- Apricotfits better
- Pearfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against apple, brandy, 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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