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College Fritters

A fried batter of flour, condensed milk, currants, and nutmeg served hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

College Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix 2 tablespoons of flour with ⅓ cup of water and ⅓ cup of condensed milk to make a smooth batter.

  2. Stir in 1 teaspoon of dried currants and 1 teaspoon of grated nutmeg.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a pan until boiling.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot lard, frying lightly.

  3. Drain on paper and serve heaped on a hot napkin.

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. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Currant + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,983 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Flour + condensed milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together410 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Flour + curranttop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,077 recipes
  5. Condensed milk + nutmegtop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together92 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Thickens the batter and gives the fritters their body as it cooks.
Condensed milk
Adds sweetness and richness, and helps the outside brown in the hot fat.
Dried currants
Add chewy pockets of sweet, fruity flavour throughout the fritters.
Grated nutmeg
Adds a warm, spicy aroma that suits the sweet batter.
Lard
Conducts heat around the batter, crisping and browning the outside while frying.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls of batter into the hot lard, frying lightly.. The lard must be hot enough so the batter sets quickly. If it is too cool, the fritters soak up fat and turn greasy. Condensed milk contains sugar that can scorch, so the fritters should be fried lightly until golden rather than left too long.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, condensed milk, nutmeg):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, condensed milk, nutmeg. 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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