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Fritters

A batter of flour, cream, white wine, sugar, and eggs is fried into golden fritters, optionally with apples or oranges.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Fritters

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, cream, white wine, sugar, and eggs until well combined.

Fry and drain

  1. Heat butter or ghee in a frying pan.

  2. Fry pieces of fruit in the hot butter until golden brown, one at a time.

  3. Place fried fritters on a sieve to drain and dry.

Serve

  1. Serve warm, sprinkled with powdered sugar on a white napkin.

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.

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.

  1. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. White wine + appletop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together372 recipes

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

  3. White wine + buttertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 help it set and hold its shape when fried.
Fine flour
Provides the structure that thickens the batter and holds the fritter together.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the batter a softer, moister texture.
White wine
Thins the batter and adds a light acidity and aroma.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown as it fries.

The step that matters

Fry pieces of fruit in the hot butter until golden brown, one at a time.. If the butter is not hot enough, fritters absorb fat and turn greasy and soggy instead of crisping. Frying one piece at a time keeps the pan temperature steady.

Swap the apple

The recipe marks apple as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, cream, white wine, sugar, egg, butter, lime):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cream, white wine, sugar, egg, butter, lime. 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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