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Dessert

Chocolate Fritters

A fried batter of chocolate, flour, milk, and butter, served plain or dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Chocolate Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the chocolate base

  1. Combine chocolate, milk, sugar, and butter in a saucepan.

  2. Boil for 2 minutes, stirring constantly until smooth.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool.

Make the batter

  1. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together.

  2. Add the sifted dry ingredients to the cooled chocolate mixture.

  3. Stir in vanilla and beat the mixture until well combined.

Fry and serve

  1. Drop by teaspoonfuls into deep hot fat, similar to making doughnuts.

  2. Remove from fat and serve plain or dusted with powdered sugar.

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 + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the fritter together as it fries.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, so the fritters puff and turn light inside.
Bitter chocolate
Supplies the main flavor and deep color, with some richness from its fat.
Milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and gives the batter a soft, loose texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the fritters brown in the hot fat.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and gives a richer mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Drop by teaspoonfuls into deep hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and turns greasy instead of crisping. Fat that is too cool or overcrowded lowers its temperature, so the fritters soak up oil. Frying in small batches keeps the fat hot and the fritters crisp outside.

“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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