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Apple Fritters
Make a smooth, stiff batter of half a pound of flour, a little salt, one table-spoonful of clarified butter, three well-beaten eggs, about a quarter of a pint of milk, and a table-spoonful of beer: the latter may be omitted. Pare and scoop out the cores of a few large apples; slice them in rounds about half an inch thick; strew sugar thickly over them, and let them remain for two hours. Then throw them into the batter; take each piece out separately, and fry it in plenty of boiling lard or oil. When they are nicely browned on both sides, lay them on a piece of blotting-paper to absorb the grease; then heap them up on a hot dish, and serve with sugar. Time, eight minutes to fry. Probable cost, 10d. Sufficient for four persons.
A straightforward beer batter and a two-hour sugar maceration. The one thing that matters: the sugared apple slices will have wept a good deal of juice, and wet apple sheds batter into the fat.
- Weights and measuresHalf a pound of flour is about 1¾ cups (225 g). A quarter of a pint, in this British book, is 5 fl oz (150 ml) — start with less and add until the batter just coats a spoon thickly.
- Drain and dry the applesAfter two hours under sugar the rounds will be sitting in syrup. Lift them out, blot them dry, and dust them lightly with flour before they go into the batter, or the coating will slide off in the fat.
- The beerThe tablespoon of beer is traditionally added for lift, and alcohol in a batter is often credited with a lighter, crisper crust. It is a very small amount for this quantity of batter, so expect little difference either way; any pale ale will do, and the recipe is right that it can be left out.
- Clarified butterButter with the milk solids removed, so it will not scorch or speckle the batter. Plain melted butter works here since the batter is fried rather than the butter itself.
- Fat temperature"Boiling lard" means fat hot enough to bubble briskly around the fritter, roughly 350–375°F (175–190°C). Lard gives the crispest result; a neutral oil is fine. Fry in small batches so the temperature does not crash.
- TimingThe recipe's eight minutes probably covers a panful rather than a single fritter, though it does not say. Half-inch apple rounds need about 2–3 minutes a side — long enough for the batter to set golden and the apple to soften without collapsing.
- Blotting-paperUse paper towels or a wire rack set over a tray. Draining on a rack keeps the underside from steaming soft while the rest fry.
- ApplesChoose a firm variety that holds its shape — Granny Smith, or a good russet. Bramleys and other soft cookers fall to purée inside the batter.
- YieldFour servings, as stated: figure three or four rounds each. Serve at once with caster sugar, since fritters go leathery within minutes of cooling.
Fritters are among the oldest sweet dishes in the English kitchen — batter-dipped and fried fruit appears in medieval recipe collections, and the word itself descends through French friture from Latin frictura, a frying. Adding ale or beer to a frying batter is an old English habit, recorded well before anyone explained it in terms of carbon dioxide; it was simply known to make a lighter crust. The economics were modest: the "probable cost, 10d." for four people put it well within the reach of a Victorian household, with apples among the fruits that kept cheaply through the winter.