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Dessert

Beignets, Fritters

Fruit fritters made by dipping fruit in a batter of flour, oil, egg yolks, and water, then frying until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Beignets, Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix oil and flour in a bowl.

  2. Add salt and enough water to form a batter.

  3. Incorporate egg yolks into the batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip the fruit into the batter.

  2. Fry the dipped fruit in hot oil until golden brown.

  3. Serve hot.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the batter, setting firm as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter so it coats the fruit.
Oil
Adds fat to the batter, tenderizing it and helping the coating brown.

The step that matters

Fry the dipped fruit in hot oil until golden brown. If the oil is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy. If it is too hot, the coating browns before the fruit and batter cook through. Steady heat gives a crisp coating with a cooked centre.

“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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