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 ↓
Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the sour milk.
Add the baking soda and melted butter, stirring until combined.
Gradually add flour until the mixture thickens to your desired consistency.
Fry and serve
Heat lard in a deep pan until boiling.
Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot lard and fry until golden brown.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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.
- Sour milk
- Provides moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the sour milk's acidity to produce gas that lightens the batter.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, contributing flavor and tenderness to the batter.
- Flour
- Thickens the batter and gives the fritters their body and structure.
The step that matters
Frying in hot lard. The lard must be fully boiling before the batter goes in. Hot fat sets the outside quickly, so the fritters brown and absorb less grease instead of becoming heavy and soggy.
“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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