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Dessert

Excellent Apple Fritters

A fried batter of apples, flour, milk, eggs, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,104 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Excellent Apple Fritters

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Slice and peel the apples.

  2. In a bowl, mix the sliced apples with flour.

Make the batter

  1. In another bowl, stir together the milk, eggs, salt, and baking soda to make a thick batter.

  2. Combine the apple mixture with the batter.

Fry

  1. Fry the mixture in hot oil 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. Apple + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Apple + flourtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,140 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk 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

All-purpose flour
Coats the apple slices and, with the eggs, gives the batter structure as it sets.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help it set firm and hold its shape while frying.
Milk
Supplies the liquid that turns the flour and eggs into a thick, spreadable batter.
Baking soda
Acts as a leavener, helping the fritters puff and turn lighter in texture.
Apples
Provide moisture and mild sweetness, becoming tender inside the crisp batter.

The step that matters

Fry in hot oil. Oil that is hot enough sets the batter quickly and browns it before the fritters absorb grease. If the oil is too cool, the batter soaks up fat and turns heavy and greasy.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, milk, egg):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, egg. 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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