Skip to main content
Main

Fritters

A batter of eggs, milk, flour, and optional spices, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Fritters

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg whites and yolks separately until fluffy.

  2. Combine the milk, salt, flour, and cooking oil in a large bowl.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks to the mixture and stir until smooth.

  4. If desired, add cinnamon or nutmeg, and for fish or meat fritters, add white pepper and cayenne.

  5. If using, mix in baking powder, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  6. Let the batter sit for an hour to thicken slightly.

  7. Just before frying, fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

Fry and drain

  1. Heat oil in a pan and drop spoonfuls of batter into the hot oil.

  2. Fry until golden brown on both sides, then remove and drain on paper towels.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  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
Yolks enrich the batter, while whipped whites add lightness and airiness to the fritters.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together and sets when fried.
Milk
Adds moisture and liquid so the flour forms a pourable batter.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter to help the fritters rise and become light.
Cream of tartar
Stabilizes the whipped egg whites and helps them hold their volume.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whipped whites trap air that gives lift. Folding gently keeps that air in; vigorous stirring deflates the batter and leaves the fritters dense.

Swap the cinnamon

The recipe marks cinnamon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, milk, flour, butter, white pepper, cream):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Tarragonfits about as well
  4. Parsleyfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, flour, butter, white pepper, cream. 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.

More fritters recipes

Corn 396Apple 377Oyster 129Potato 119Clam 113Rice 108 See all 48 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes