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Dessert

Corn or Apple Fritters

A batter of eggs, milk, flour, salt, baking powder, and corn or apples, fried in lard until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and corn are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,955 recipes. Both carry hexanal, which smells green, grassy. The science ↓

Corn or Apple Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the eggs and mix in the milk.

  2. Add the flour, salt, and baking powder, stirring until you have a thick batter.

  3. Fold in the corn or chopped apples.

Fry

  1. Heat lard in a deep pan until boiling.

  2. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into the hot lard and 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. Milk + corntop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  2. Flour + corntop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during frying.
Flour
Forms the thick batter body that holds the fritters together.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the fritters rise and turn light.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it combines smoothly.
Corn
Adds sweetness, texture, and flavor to the fritters.

The step that matters

Frying the spoonfuls in hot lard. The lard must be hot enough that the batter sets and browns quickly on the outside. If it is too cool, the fritters absorb excess fat and turn greasy and heavy.

“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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