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Dessert

Fritters

Sweet almond fritters flavored with orange flower or cinnamon water, nutmeg, and sugar, fried in lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Fritters

Why it works: Almond and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat and strain the eggs.

  2. Mix in milk and flour to create a thick pancake batter.

  3. Pound the batter until smooth, then add the egg yolks, egg whites, orange-flower water or cinnamon water, blanched almonds, sugar, and nutmeg.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a large stewpan until hot.

  2. Drop batter by the size of large nuts into the hot lard and fry until browned, turning as needed.

  3. Remove fritters onto clean paper and keep warm 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.

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. Almond + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Orange + almondtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,125 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Orange + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,746 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 add structure and richness as the fritters set in the hot fat.
Flour
Forms the thick batter body that holds its shape during frying.
Milk
Adds moisture to loosen the flour into a pourable pancake-style batter.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the fritters brown in the hot lard.
Blanched almonds
Contribute nutty flavour and a textural bite to the fritters.

The step that matters

Drop batter into hot lard. If the lard is not hot enough, batter absorbs fat and turns greasy instead of setting and browning quickly. Keeping the fat hot gives a crisp exterior and a lighter, less oily fritter.

Swap the orange

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour, almond, sugar, 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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