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FRITTERS (plain)
Beat up two eggs in a quarter of a pint of milk; strain, and mix with two ounces of flour into a very smooth batter. Beat this well, and drop the mixture, a dessert-spoonful at a time, into boiling lard, and fry to a light golden colour. Turn on to kitchen paper to drain, and serve very hot with pounded sugar and cut lemon, or jam, as preferred.
A batter of eggs, milk and flour dropped straight into hot fat — the plainest form of fritter, meant as a base for whatever fruit or preserve is at hand. Two things decide the result: the temperature of the fat and the thinness of the batter.
- Fat temperature"Boiling lard" means fat at frying heat, roughly 350-375F, not literally boiling. Below that the very loose batter soaks fat and spreads into greasy lace; above 375F the outside colours before the inside sets. The recipe gives no test; cooks judged the heat by eye, or by browning a cube of bread in it.
- Quarter of a pintAn imperial quarter pint is 5 fl oz, about 140 ml — a little over half a US cup. Measured in US pints it would be only 4 fl oz, so use the larger figure for a British book of this date.
- Two ounces of flourAbout 1/2 cup of plain flour, weighed rather than scooped. With two eggs and 5 fl oz of milk this gives a thin, loose batter, slack enough to run from a dessert-spoon.
- StrainingThe eggs and milk are strained before the flour goes in, which catches chalazae and any fragments of shell.
- Pounded sugarSugar crushed fine in a mortar — modern caster or superfine sugar is the direct equivalent. Granulated will sit on the surface rather than clinging.
- Draining"Kitchen paper" here means any absorbent paper or a clean cloth. A wire rack over a tray works better than paper for a batch, since the undersides stay crisp instead of steaming.
- YieldDessert-spoonfuls of this quantity give something like two dozen small fritters. They are best eaten straight from the pan, so fry in batches and serve as they come.
- Using it as a baseSlices of apple, banana or pineapple dipped in a batter like this need a slightly thicker mix -- hold back a spoonful or two of the milk so the batter coats rather than runs.
"Fritter" descends through Old French friture from Latin frigere, to fry, and the word has been in English cookery since the medieval period, when fritters ran from apple and herb versions to elaborate spiced ones served at feasts. By the time Cassell's dictionary was compiled in the later nineteenth century the plain fritter had become a workhorse: a cheap, fast pudding requiring two eggs, a splash of milk and two ounces of flour, and dressed up with whatever sugar, lemon or jam the house had. It sits in "The Principles of Cookery" rather than among the puddings, and the apple, orange and jam fritters appear elsewhere in the book. Frying in lard was standard in British kitchens until well into the twentieth century.