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Dessert

Lemon Fritters

A fried dough fritter flavored with lemon, nutmeg, cinnamon, and powdered sugar, served with a lemon‑wine glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Lemon Fritters

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Lemon Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Beat the yolks of 5 eggs with ½ cup powdered sugar.

  2. Add the grated peel of ½ lemon, nutmeg, cinnamon, and salt.

  3. Mix in ½ cup cream, then fold in the beaten egg whites.

  4. Gradually add 2 heaping cups of flour to form a soft paste.

Shape and fry

  1. Roll out the dough to about ¾ inch thick and cut into small circles.

  2. Fry the circles in hot lard until they puff up.

  3. Drain on clean paper and serve warm.

Make the sauce

  1. For the sauce, mix the juice of 2 lemons, grated peel of 1 lemon, 1 cup powdered sugar, 1 glass of wine, and beaten egg whites.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 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
Whipped whites trap air, lightening the dough and helping the fritters puff.
All-purpose flour
Forms the starch and gluten structure that holds the soft paste together.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and a tender crumb to the fritters.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, giving a richer, softer interior.
Lard
Conducts heat and fries the surface to a golden, crisp finish.
Lemon peel
Its aromatic oils add bright citrus fragrance to the dough.

The step that matters

Frying in hot lard. The lard must be hot enough to set the dough quickly so the fritters puff. If it is too cool, the dough soaks up fat, turning greasy and dense.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, cream, flour, wine):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, cream, flour, wine. 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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