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Apple Fritters (Make a batter in proportion)
Make a batter in proportion of one cup sweet milk to two cups flour, a heaping tea-spoon baking powder, two eggs beaten separately, one table-spoon sugar, and salt-spoon salt; heat the milk a little more than milk-warm, add slowly to the beaten yolks and sugar, then add flour and whites of eggs; stir all together, and throw in thin slices of good sour apples, dipping the batter up over them; drop in boiling lard in large spoonfuls with piece of apple in each, and fry to a light brown.. Serve with maple syrup or a nice syrup made of sugar. - Mrs. James Henderson.
A straightforward drop fritter batter, with one detail worth respecting: the warmed milk and separately beaten whites are what keep it light. Fold, do not stir, once the whites go in.
- Sweet milkSimply fresh unsoured milk, as opposed to buttermilk or clabber. Whole milk is the right substitute.
- Salt-spoonA salt-spoon held about a quarter teaspoon, though the term was loose; a quarter teaspoon of table salt is right for this quantity of batter.
- More than milk-warmMilk-warm means lukewarm, roughly blood heat. Warming it a little beyond that helps the sugar dissolve and loosens the batter; keep it comfortably warm rather than hot, and add it slowly to the yolks as the recipe directs.
- Frying fat and temperature"Boiling lard" means fat hot enough to bubble vigorously when the batter hits it, in modern terms somewhere in the region of 350-375F. Too cool and the fritters absorb grease; too hot and the outside browns before the apple softens. Lard was the period fat; any neutral fat with a high smoke point will serve.
- Sour applesTart, firm cooking apples: Granny Smith, Bramley, Northern Spy, Winesap. Slice no thicker than a quarter inch so the fruit cooks through in the time the batter needs to brown, and pat the slices dry so the batter clings.
- Baking powderCommercial baking powder was available but still relatively new when this book appeared, and formulas varied in strength. A heaping teaspoon of modern double-acting powder is on the light side for two cups of flour, but the separately beaten whites do much of the lifting.
- DrainingLift onto a rack rather than paper if you can; fritters sitting flat on absorbent paper steam and go soft on the underside.
- YieldAbout a dozen to fifteen large spoonfuls, serving four. Fry in small batches so the fat temperature does not crash, and eat them hot.
Apple fritters are among the older fried batter dishes in English cookery. Buckeye Cookery was compiled in Ohio from contributions by named local women, which is why this version carries Mrs. James Henderson's name. The instruction to use "good sour apples" reflects a period when households cooked whatever the orchard or the cellar gave them, and tart keeping apples were valued because they held their shape and flavor in cooking better than soft sweet varieties. The alternative offered to maple syrup, "a nice syrup made of sugar," would have been sugar boiled with water.