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Golden-ball Fritters

A sweet fried dough fritter made with flour, eggs, butter, sugar, and water, served with syrup or melted butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Golden-ball Fritters

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 ↓

Golden-ball Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a saucepan, combine water, butter, and sugar. Bring to a boil.

  2. Stir in the sifted flour quickly and thoroughly.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

  4. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the dough into boiling lard.

  2. Stir the lard to help the fritters form round shapes.

  3. Serve with syrup or melted sugar and butter.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Flour
Forms the starchy structure that holds the dough together and sets when fried.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help the dough puff and bind during frying.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the fritters a tender texture and flavour.
Water
Provides the liquid that gelatinises the flour and creates steam for lightness.

The step that matters

Beat in the eggs one at a time. Adding eggs gradually lets each one fully blend into the starch paste, giving a smooth, cohesive dough. Adding them all at once can cause curdling or a loose batter that won't hold its shape in the hot lard.

“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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