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Bell Fritters

A fried dough made with butter, water, flour, eggs, lard, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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 ↓

Bell Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a pot, combine the butter and water; bring to a boil.

  2. Gradually add the flour, stirring continuously until the mixture thickens smoothly.

  3. Cook for a few more minutes while stirring to prevent sticking.

  4. Transfer the mixture to a wooden bowl and add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition until the dough is light.

Fry and serve

  1. In a pan, heat the lard until boiling.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the dough into the hot lard, shaping them into bell-like rounds.

  3. Fry until golden brown.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 starch structure that thickens the dough and gives the fritters their body.
Eggs
Add structure and lift as they set, and make the dough light and airy when beaten in.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing tenderness and flavor to the dough.
Lard
Frying fat that transfers heat quickly and browns the outside of the fritters.

The step that matters

Beating in the eggs. Eggs must be added one at a time and beaten well so each addition emulsifies fully into the starch paste. Adding them too fast or under-beating can leave a dough that is lumpy, greasy or too loose to hold its shape in the hot fat.

“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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