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
Prepare the apples
Pare and core the apples, then slice them into 1‑inch thick rounds.
Make the batter
In a bowl, make a batter with the milk, wheatmeal, and beaten eggs, adding sugar to taste.
Heat oil or butter in a frying pan until boiling.
Fry and serve
Dip the apple slices into the batter and fry until golden brown.
Drain the fritters on paper towels and keep them warm in the oven until all are cooked.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Apple + milktop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,104 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Apple + buttertop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Cooking apples
- Provide the fruit that is coated in batter and fried into the fritter.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and help it set and brown during frying.
- Allinson fine wheatmeal
- Forms the body of the batter, giving the coating structure once fried.
- Milk
- Thins the flour and eggs into a batter and adds moisture and browning.
The step that matters
Frying the coated apple slices. The fat must be hot enough before the battered apple goes in; if it is too cool, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisping and browning quickly.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, sugar, butter):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Coconutfits about as well
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, sugar, butter. 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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