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Dessert

Spanish Fritters

Bread squares soaked in sweetened cream mixture and fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spanish Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the crust from the bread and cut the inside into 3‑inch square and 1‑inch thick pieces.

Soak

  1. In a bowl, combine the sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, and beaten egg with the cream.

  2. Soak the bread pieces in the mixture until well saturated.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the soaked bread in butter until golden brown.

  2. Serve with a hot sauce.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Bakers' bread
Forms the body of the fritters and soaks up the custard mixture.
Egg
Helps bind the soaking mixture and adds richness to the custard coating.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, helping the bread stay tender inside.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the outside brown when fried.

The step that matters

Fry the soaked bread in butter until golden brown. Soaked bread is fragile and wet, so it needs moderate heat in enough butter to brown the outside and set the coating before the inside turns soggy or the pieces break apart.

“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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