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Dessert

Coffee Custard Fritters

A custard mixture of milk, cream, egg yolks, flour, vanilla, sugar, and coffee essence baked, cut, rolled in sugar, battered, fried, and sprinkled cinnamon sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Coffee Custard Fritters

Oven, in the book's wordsA very gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. Beat all ingredients together until smooth.

  2. Pour the mixture into a shallow dish.

  3. Bake over water in a gentle oven until set.

Cut and coat

  1. Let it cool, then cut into strips about 2 inches long, 1 inch wide, and ½ inch thick.

  2. Roll the strips in sugar.

  3. Dip the strips in batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the strips in butter until pale brown.

  2. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar before serving.

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. Vanilla + coffeetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,391 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  5. Milk + coffeetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

Egg yolks
Coagulate when gently heated, giving the custard its set structure and rich texture.
Flour
Adds body and helps the custard hold its shape when cut into strips.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, producing a softer, smoother custard.
Milk
Provides liquid that moistens the custard and dilutes the egg proteins for a tender set.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the strips brown lightly when fried.
Coffee essence
Gives the custard its main coffee flavour and aroma.

The step that matters

Bake over water in a gentle oven until set. Egg yolks set at moderate temperatures. Too much heat, or baking without a water bath, can overcook the edges and make the custard grainy or weepy. Stop as soon as it is just set.

“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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