Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓
Apple Fritters
Ingredients
Directions
Make the batter
In a bowl, mix flour, butter, salt, and egg yolks.
Add enough milk to create a thin batter.
Fold in the beaten egg whites and prepared apples.
Fry and serve
Heat lard or clarified dripping in a pan until boiling.
Drop large tablespoons of the batter into the hot fat.
Fry until light brown, turning as needed.
Remove fritters and place on blotting paper to absorb excess grease.
Serve hot, piled high and sprinkled with sifted sugar.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Milk + appletop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,104 recipes
Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + appletop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,706 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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
- Flour
- Forms the batter's structure, setting the fritter as it fries.
- Eggs
- Egg whites, beaten and folded in, add lightness and help the fritters rise.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, contributing tenderness and flavour to the batter.
- Apples
- Provide the fruit filling and moisture within each fritter.
- Lard or clarified dripping
- Frying fat that transfers heat and browns the outside of the fritters.
The step that matters
Fry until light brown, turning as needed. The fat must be hot enough to set the batter quickly. If it is too cool, the fritters absorb grease and turn heavy; if too hot, the outside browns before the apple inside cooks through.
Swap the apple
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, egg, milk, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Applethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, egg, milk, 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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