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Dessert

French Fritters

A batter of boiled milk, flour, butter, salt, and eggs is fried into golden brown fritters.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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French Fritters

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 ↓

French Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the boiled milk and flour until a stiff batter forms.

  2. Add the butter and salt, mixing well.

  3. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs until frothy.

  4. Fold the beaten eggs into the batter gently.

Fry

  1. Fry spoonfuls of the batter in hot oil 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Beaten eggs add structure and lift, helping the fritters puff and hold their shape while frying.
Flour
Flour thickens the boiled milk into a stiff batter that holds its shape in the hot oil.
Butter
Butter adds richness and fat, contributing to a tender interior and flavor.

The step that matters

Fold the beaten eggs into the batter gently. Folding keeps the air whisked into the eggs intact. Overmixing knocks out that air and deflates the batter, so the fritters turn out dense rather than light.

“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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