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 ↓
Plain Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
Separate the eggs and beat the whites until stiff.
In a bowl, combine the beaten yolks, milk, flour, salt, sugar, and melted butter.
Beat the mixture until light and fluffy.
Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.
Fry
Drop spoonfuls of the batter into hot lard.
Fry until golden brown.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Eggs
- Yolks enrich the batter and whites, beaten stiff and folded in, make it light and airy.
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the starch and gluten that give the fritters their body and structure.
- Milk
- Adds moisture to form a batter that fries up tender inside.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the batter and helps the surface brown in the hot lard.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richer flavor and a tender crumb.
- Lard
- Frying fat that transfers heat quickly and gives the outside a golden, crisp crust.
The step that matters
Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. Stiffly beaten whites hold air that makes the batter light. Overmixing deflates that foam, leaving dense fritters, so fold gently just until combined.
“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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