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Batter Fritters
3 Eggs, 1 pinch Salt, 2 tablespoonfuls Butter, Flour, sufficient. 1 even teaspoonful The Great "Arm & Hammer" Soda.
Nutmeg or Vanilla Extract. 1 2 tablespoonfuls powdered Sugar, 1 cup sour Milk, 1 even teaspoonful The Great "Arm & Hammer" Soda.
Beat together the eggs, powdered sugar and salt.
Add the sour milk, butter (melted) The Great "Arm & Hammer" Soda and sufficient sifted cake flour to make a thin, smooth batter. Beat up well. The batter must be thick enough so that it will not run from the spoon. Drop by spoonfuls into the hot lard, turn over when brown on the bottom. For flavor you may grate not quite a half a nutmeg or use half a teaspoonful of pure Vanilla Extract. Serve while hot with maple syrup.
A plain drop fritter leavened by the reaction of soda with sour milk. The ingredient list as printed is garbled and incomplete, so read the method rather than the list.
- The missing eggsThe method says to beat the eggs, but no quantity survives in the ingredient list. Two eggs suits a cup of sour milk; three gives a richer, more custardy interior.
- 1 2 tablespoonfuls powdered SugarThe printed page was checked and the figure is as our text now gives it: one to two tablespoonfuls. Use the smaller amount, since the fritters are served with maple syrup.
- Sour milkThis means naturally soured raw milk, acidic enough to react with the soda. Pasteurised milk left out spoils rather than sours. Use cultured buttermilk, or a cup of milk with a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar stirred in and left ten minutes.
- The sodaOne level teaspoon per cup of buttermilk is at the upper end of the useful range. Sift it with the flour rather than dropping it into the wet mixture, or you will get soapy yellow flecks.
- Thin or thickThe text calls for a thin, smooth batter and then says it must not run from the spoon. The second sentence governs. Aim for something that holds its shape on a spoon and falls off reluctantly, roughly the consistency of thick sour cream.
- Fry temperatureThe original says only "hot lard." Hold the fat at 365-375F. Below that the fritters absorb grease; above it the outside colours before the soda-raised centre has set.
- FatLard fries beautifully and gives the period flavour, but any neutral oil with a high smoke point works. Allow at least two inches of depth so the fritters can turn.
- FlavouringThe recipe's "not quite a half" a grated nutmeg is a substantial amount by modern taste; a quarter of a whole nutmeg, or the half teaspoon of vanilla the recipe offers as the alternative, will be milder.
- Yield and timingExpect 16 to 20 walnut-sized fritters, each taking three to four minutes total. Work in small batches to keep the fat temperature up, and eat them within minutes of draining.
This comes from one of the recipe booklets that Church & Dwight distributed to promote Arm & Hammer soda, which is why the brand name is repeated in full inside the instructions. Such pamphlets were given away with the product, and they served a practical purpose beyond advertising: cooks needed to be taught the proportions for chemical leavening. Sodium bicarbonate had by this period largely displaced the older potassium-based saleratus, though the two names were often used loosely. The chemistry on display here is an early form of chemical leavening, predating commercial baking powder: an acid liquid, in this case sour milk, meets an alkali and produces carbon dioxide immediately, which is why the batter goes straight into the fat rather than resting. Fritters of this kind were a standard use for milk that had turned in a household without refrigeration.