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Dessert

Banana Fritters

A batter-based fried dessert made with sliced bananas, served hot with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and banana are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,430 recipes. Both carry ethyl isobutyrate, which smells fruity, ethereal. The science ↓

Banana Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg and sugar together in a bowl.

  2. Add the milk and mix well.

  3. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt, then add to the mixture.

  4. Beat the batter until smooth.

Fry and serve

  1. Cut the bananas lengthwise and then across.

  2. Dip the banana pieces in the batter.

  3. Fry in hot lard until golden brown.

  4. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve hot.

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. Vanilla + bananatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl isobutyrate (fruity, ethereal).

  2. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Milk + bananatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,470 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Egg
Binds the batter and adds richness and structure as it sets in the hot fat.
Flour
Forms the structure of the batter so the coating holds around the banana pieces.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the fritters puff and turn light.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the batter a smooth, pourable consistency.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the coating brown in the hot fat.
Bananas
Provide sweetness, aroma and moisture inside the crisp batter coating.

The step that matters

Fry in hot lard until golden brown. If the fat is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisp. Frying too hot browns the outside before the inside cooks through.

Swap the banana

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Bananathe original

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