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Dessert

Apple Fritters

Apple fritters are battered apple slices fried in lard and served with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Apple Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, egg, and salt.

  2. Add enough milk to achieve a thick cream-like batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Dip the apple slices into the batter.

  2. Heat lard in a pan and fry the battered apple slices until golden brown.

  3. Sprinkle with granulated sugar before serving.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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 main structure of the batter that coats the apple slices.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it heats, helping the batter puff and turn light.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the hot lard.
Milk
Loosens the flour into a thick, cream-like batter that clings to the apples.
Apples
Provide the fruit inside the batter, softening slightly as they fry.
Lard
Conducts heat to fry the batter and browns its surface.

The step that matters

Frying until golden brown. The hot fat must be hot enough to set and brown the batter quickly; if it is too cool, the coating soaks up oil and turns greasy before it crisps.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, milk, cream, sugar. 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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