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Dessert

To Make Plain Fritters

A batter of milk, eggs, flour, and sugar is fried in lard and served sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

To Make Plain Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine milk and eggs.

  2. Gradually add flour until the mixture is thicker than a common batter pudding.

  3. Stir in sugar to taste.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat lard in a frying pan.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot lard.

  3. Fry until golden brown.

  4. Serve on a napkin, sprinkled with sugar and pounded cinnamon.

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. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 help it set firm when fried.
Flour
Thickens the batter so the fritters hold their shape in the fat.
Milk
Loosens the batter and adds moisture for a tender interior.
Lard
Conducts heat and browns the outside of the fritters.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown.

The step that matters

Fry until golden brown. The batter must sit in hot fat so the outside sets and browns before the inside becomes greasy. If the fat is not hot enough, the fritters absorb more lard and turn heavy.

“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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