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Dessert

Apple and Orange Fritters

Fried apple and orange slices coated in batter, served hot with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,230 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Apple and Orange Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix flour, melted butter, salt, and tepid water until smooth to form a thick batter.

  2. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Prepare the fruit

  1. Peel and core the apples.

  2. Slice the apples into ½ inch thick rounds.

  3. Peel and slice the orange.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat dripping or lard in a pan until it begins to smoke.

  2. Dip apple slices into the batter.

  3. Carefully place them in the hot fat.

  4. Fry until pale brown.

  5. Remove and drain on paper towels.

  6. Sprinkle with sugar.

  7. Serve hot.

  8. Dip orange slices into the batter.

  9. Fry until pale brown.

  10. Remove and drain on paper towels.

  11. Sprinkle with sugar.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Flour
Forms the batter's structure as it sets around the fruit in hot fat.
Eggs
Beaten whites add lightness and puff the batter when fried.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the batter.
Apples
Firm slices hold their shape under the batter while cooking through.

The step that matters

Heating the fat until it begins to smoke. Hot fat sets the batter quickly so fritters brown on the outside without soaking up oil. If the fat is too cool, the batter absorbs grease and turns heavy and soggy.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, egg, apple, sugar. 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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