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Apricot Fritters

A batter-coated apricot fried until golden and dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter 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 ↓

Apricot Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix together the flour and salt.

  2. In another bowl, beat the egg yolks, then add the cold water and stir into the flour mixture.

  3. Add the melted butter and mix well.

  4. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold into the batter.

  5. Let the batter rest in a cool place for at least 2 hours.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip each drained apricot into the batter until fully coated.

  2. Carefully drop the coated apricots into hot oil and fry until golden brown.

  3. Remove and drain on paper towels.

  4. Dust with powdered sugar and serve with a sauce made from the syrup thickened with cornstarch.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + saucetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + apricottop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,458 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the batter that coats and crisps around the apricot.
Large eggs
Yolks enrich the batter while whipped whites add lightness and help it puff.
Cold water
Thins the batter to a coating consistency and keeps the crust light.
Melted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavour in the crust.
Canned apricots
Provide the sweet, tangy fruit filling that the batter wraps around.
Cornstarch
Thickens the apricot syrup into a sauce for serving.

The step that matters

Folding the egg whites into the batter. Whipped whites hold air that lifts the batter. Overmixing or stirring vigorously deflates them, leaving a dense, heavy coating instead of a light, puffy one.

Swap the apricot

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

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

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