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Dessert

Apple

A fried apple batter made with flour, cream, white wine, sugar, eggs, and chopped apples, served warm with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Apple

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

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

  2. Add the chopped apples to the batter and mix well.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat butter or ghee in a frying pan.

  2. Spoon the mixture into the hot pan and fry until golden brown on each side.

  3. Remove from the pan and place on a sieve to dry.

  4. Serve warm, dusted 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.

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 set the fritters as they cook.
Fine flour
Provides structure so the batter holds its shape while frying.
Apples
Add moisture and sweetness, and flavour that carries through the fritter.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the batter.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the texture of the batter.

The step that matters

Frying the fritters until golden brown on each side. The pan must be hot before the batter goes in, so the outside sets and browns quickly. A cool pan lets the batter soak up fat and turn greasy and dense inside.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Strawberryfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

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