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Fritters

Apple fritters made by marinating apple slices in brandy and sugar, coating in batter, and frying.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Fritters

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Core and slice the apples into ¼ inch thick pieces.

  2. Marinate the apple slices in brandy and sugar for at least 2 hours, adding lemon rind or cinnamon.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix flour with orange‑flower water and beaten egg whites until cold.

  2. Combine wine, brandy, and oil with a thick paste made from egg yolks, flour, and water to form a batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Drain the marinated apple slices, dip them in the batter, ensuring they are fully coated, and fry until golden.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Apple + orangetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,230 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

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

  5. Apple + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,291 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Apples
Provide the fruit that is coated in batter and fried until tender inside.
Flour
Forms the body of the batter and sets around the apple slices when fried.
Egg whites
Add airiness and lightness to the batter as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Enrich the batter and help bind it into a smooth paste.
Oil
Carries heat into the batter and gives it a crisp, golden fried surface.
Brandy
Flavours the apples during marinating and adds aroma to the batter.

The step that matters

Frying the coated apple slices. Excess moisture from the marinated apples can thin the batter and make it greasy or soggy. Draining well and coating fully lets the batter set and brown evenly in hot oil.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (brandy, sugar, lemon, flour, orange, egg, wine):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against brandy, sugar, lemon, flour, orange, egg, wine. 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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