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Dessert

Apple Fritters

A batter of milk, egg, flour, apples, and baking powder is fried and served with a sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Apple Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Combine milk, egg, baking powder, and butter in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add flour to make a stiff batter, then stir in chopped apples.

Fry the fritters

  1. Heat lard in a pan and fry spoonfuls of the batter until golden brown.

Make the sauce

  1. Mix sugar, cornstarch, and a small piece of butter for the sauce.

  2. Pour boiling water into the mixture until thin, then cook until clear.

  3. Beat in one egg and add flavoring to the sauce 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 + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Binds the batter and helps set the fritters as they cook.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, making the fritters rise and turn light.
Cornstarch
Thickens the sauce as it cooks, giving it a clear, glossy body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to the sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and flavor to the batter and sauce.

The step that matters

Pour boiling water into the sauce mixture until thin, then cook until clear. Cornstarch must be heated to boiling to swell and thicken fully; if it is not cooked long enough, the sauce stays cloudy and starchy-tasting.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, butter, flour, sugar, sauce. 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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