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Fritter Batter

A simple batter for frying fritters, made with egg, milk, salt, optional sugar, baking powder, flour, and fried in boiling lard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Fritter Batter

Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fritter Batter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, beat the egg and mix in the milk, salt, sugar, and baking powder.

  2. Gradually add flour until the batter is thicker than pancake batter.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into boiling lard.

  2. Serve with any meat that has gravy or with fruit.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  5. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 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

Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the hot fat.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten that give the fritters their body and hold their shape.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the fritters puff and turn light.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it can be stirred smooth.

The step that matters

Dropping the batter into boiling lard. The fat must be hot enough to set the outside quickly. If it is too cool, the batter soaks up grease and turns heavy and greasy instead of crisp and puffed.

“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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