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Dessert

Banana Fritters

A fried batter‑coated banana slice served as a sweet snack.

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

Banana Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs, sugar, sweet milk, butter, salt, and baking powder together.

  2. Gradually add flour until the batter is stiff, similar to drop cake or dumpling batter.

Fry

  1. Line a tablespoon with batter, place a slice of banana (½ inch thick) on top, and cover with more batter.

  2. Drop the coated banana into hot fat and fry until golden brown.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during frying.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the fritters puff and turn light.
Flour
Gives the batter body so it holds its shape around the banana.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the outside brown in the hot fat.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.

The step that matters

Drop the coated banana into hot fat and fry until golden brown.. If the fat is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisping. Frying at a steady heat sets the coating quickly and keeps the banana inside soft.

“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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