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Apple Fritters

Apple fritters are battered apple slices fried in butter and served with sugar and wine sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Apple Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs and mix with the ale.

  2. Add enough flour to make a batter thicker than a common pudding.

  3. Season with nutmeg and sugar to taste.

  4. Let the batter stand for 3-4 minutes to rise.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip the apple slices into the batter.

  2. Fry the battered apple slices in butter until crisp.

  3. Serve with grated sugar on top and wine sauce on the side.

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 + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Apple + winetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,207 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Nutmeg + appletop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 add structure as they set in the hot butter.
Ale
Thins the batter and adds a light, yeasty aroma.
Flour
Builds the batter's body so it coats the apple slices.
Apple slices
Provide the fruity filling that softens inside the crisp coating.
Butter
Fries the batter, adding browning and rich flavour.

The step that matters

Frying the battered apple slices in butter until crisp. Butter browns quickly and can burn before the batter sets, so the heat needs to be moderate. The batter must cook through to become crisp while the apple softens inside.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, nutmeg, sugar, butter, wine, 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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