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Dessert

Apple Fritters

Fried batter with apples, currants, and butter, served with sweet sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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

Prepare

  1. Prepare the apples as for sauce.

  2. Stir in the butter and sugar.

  3. Add the currants and lemon rind.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs, then mix in the flour, baking powder, milk, and a little salt.

  2. Stir in the apple mixture.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the fritters until nicely browned on both sides.

  2. Serve with sweet sauce.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

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

  3. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Apple + lemontop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Flour and butter 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 give the fritters structure as they set.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the batter once cooked.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the batter, giving the fritters a lighter texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing to tenderness and browning.
Apples
Provide moisture and fruity flavour throughout the fritters.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during frying.

The step that matters

Fry until nicely browned on both sides. Frying at too low a heat lets the batter soak up oil and turn greasy, while too high a heat browns the outside before the centre sets. Even, moderate heat cooks the batter through and gives an evenly golden crust.

Swap the currant

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

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

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