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Queen Fritters

A fried batter of water, butter, flour, and eggs, shaped into rings and served hot with meat and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Queen Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a saucepan, bring 1 pint of water and 4 ounces of butter to a boil.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in 8 ounces of flour until well combined.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool slightly, then beat in 10 eggs one at a time until smooth.

Shape and fry

  1. Use a piping bag to pipe the mixture into oval rings on a greased baking pan.

  2. Heat frying fat in a deep pan and dip the rings into the fat to fry until puffed and golden.

Serve

  1. Serve hot with meat in the center and gravy.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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
Provides starch that sets with the cooked batter to give the fritters structure.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, and help the batter puff and set as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the dough and helps it stay tender.
Water
Creates steam when boiled with butter, helping the dough puff while cooking.

The step that matters

Beating in the eggs. If the mixture is too hot, eggs can scramble, and if it is too cool or too wet, the dough will not hold its shape or puff well. Cooling slightly and adding eggs gradually keeps it smooth and workable.

“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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