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Dessert

Bell Fritters

A batter of flour, eggs, and water fried in lard, served with syrup or molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Bell Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Boil 1 pint of water.

  2. Stir in 1 pint of flour while boiling.

  3. Break in 6 eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into boiling lard, ensuring they do not touch the pan.

  2. Serve with syrup or molasses.

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 + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Cooked into the boiling water, it forms a thick paste that gives the fritters their body.
Eggs
Added one at a time, they bind the batter and give the fritters a light, tender structure.

The step that matters

Dropping the batter into boiling lard. Spoonfuls must be spaced so they do not touch. Crowding the pan drops the lard temperature, so the fritters stick together and absorb more fat instead of browning crisply.

“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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