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Dessert

Apple Fritters.— — Beignets De Pommes

Apple fritters are fried apple pieces soaked in brandy, lemon peel, and cinnamon, coated in a flour batter, and dusted with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,598 recipes. Both carry methyl cinnamate, which smells strawberry. The science ↓

Apple Fritters.— — Beignets De Pommes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the apples

  1. Quarter the apples and remove the cores.

  2. Soak the apple quarters in brandy with lemon peel and cinnamon.

Fry and serve

  1. Drain the apples and dip them in a light batter made from flour and water.

  2. Heat oil in a frying pan and fry the apples until golden brown.

  3. Drain on a cloth and dust with sifted sugar before serving.

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 + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,598 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  2. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Rennet apples
Provide the fruit that softens and becomes tender inside the crisp batter.
All-purpose flour
Forms the light batter that crisps and browns in the hot oil around the apple.
Brandy
Flavors the apple quarters during the soak, adding aroma to the fruit.

The step that matters

Frying the battered apples. The oil must be hot enough to crisp the batter quickly. If it is too cool, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy before the apple cooks through.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Pearfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against apple, brandy, cinnamon, flour, 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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