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Dagmar Fritters
Make a batter of the consistency of cream with half a pound of flour, a little salt, and five well-beaten eggs. Beat it for some minutes and add a little milk, powdered sugar, a tea-spoonful each of grated lemon-peel and powdered cinnamon; then beat again and throw in an ounce and a half of candied citron cut into small pieces. Put into a stewpan a piece of butter; as soon as that is dissolved, pour in the batter, and cook slowly, taking care not to let it stick to the pan. When it becomes solid and in some degree baked, take it out and place it on a dish; put more lard or butter into the stewpan, cut the paste into strips about a finger's length, giving it a slit at each end to make it rise, which it will do very quickly, and lay them in the boiling fat. When done, serve on a napkin, or with a layer of sifted sugar. Time, twenty minutes.
An unusual two-stage fritter: a thick egg batter is first set in a pan like a fat pancake, then cut into strips and fried again until it puffs. Read the whole method before starting, because the first stage is easy to overcook.
- The hinge: stop the first cooking earlyThe batter should come out of the pan just set and only "in some degree baked" — firm enough to cut into strips, still soft inside. If you cook it through like a pancake it will not puff in the fat, and you will have fried bread rather than fritters.
- Half a pound of flourAbout 225 g, or roughly 1¾ cups measured by scoop-and-level. With five eggs this gives a thick batter, which is why the recipe insists on beating and thinning.
- "A little milk" is genuinely vagueThe target is stated at the outset: the consistency of cream. No quantity is given, so add milk a spoonful at a time and stop when the batter has thinned to about the thickness of cream.
- StewpanIn Victorian usage a stewpan is a straight-sided saucepan, not a casserole dish. A heavy 8–10 inch frying pan or sauté pan does the first stage better, since you want a broad flat sheet.
- Candied citronAn ounce and a half is about 40 g. Citron peel is still sold at Christmas and in Italian groceries; candied mixed peel or chopped candied orange is the usual substitute. Chop it small so the strips still puff.
- Frying temperature"Boiling fat" is best read as the usual deep-frying range, roughly 350–375°F (175–190°C). Lard was standard; any neutral frying fat works. Fat that is not hot enough will be soaked up instead of making the strips rise.
- The slit at each endNot decorative: the recipe says the slit is there "to make it rise", presumably by letting the strip open and swell as it cooks in the fat.
- Timing and yieldThe recipe gives only "Time, twenty minutes" and does not say what it covers; the second frying is quick, a couple of minutes a batch. No yield is stated.
- ServingThe napkin is the period way of keeping fritters hot and blotting fat; a folded cloth or a rack in a warm oven does the same. Dust with sifted icing or caster sugar at the last moment, since sugar added early dissolves and weeps.
Dishes named after royalty and society figures were a Victorian fashion, and the name Dagmar is traditionally associated with Princess Dagmar of Denmark, later Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia, whose sister Alexandra married the Prince of Wales in 1863 — but the link to this dish is inference, not documented. The technique itself is older and continental: a stiff egg batter cooked to a sheet, cut and refried is the same idea behind various German and Austrian Schnitten and fried pastry strips, and citron, cinnamon and lemon peel are common sweet flavourings in nineteenth-century pastry work. What the entry shows is how lift was got without yeast or chemical raising: five eggs, hard beating, and a slit to let steam do the work in hot fat.