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GERMAN FRITTERS (another sort)
Take seven or eight large sound baking apples, pare them, and scoop out the core without breaking the apples. Cut them into round slices about a quarter of an inch in thickness, and simmer them in a saucepan, with a cupful of brandy, the thin rind of a lemon, and a table-spoonful of sugar, till they are tender, but unbroken. Drain them, dip them into a little flour, and fry them in hot fat till they are lightly browned. Put them on a hot dish, and strain a little finely-sifted sugar over them. Time, altogether, half an hour. Probable cost, 10d., exclusive of the brandy. Sufficient for five or six persons.
A simple apple fritter that skips batter entirely — the poaching liquor and a dusting of flour do the work. Two things decide whether it succeeds: apple choice and how dry the slices are before they meet the fat.
- The hinge: dry the slicesFlour will not adhere to wet poached apple, and any liquid carried into hot fat spits and drops the temperature. Drain the rings on a rack or cloth until the surface looks matte, then flour them just before frying.
- Apples"Baking apples" in an English book of this period means a cooking apple that holds together under heat; several culinary varieties were in use, and a Bramley-type is the nearest modern equivalent. Any firm tart apple works; avoid soft eating varieties, which will collapse into the poaching liquor.
- Simmer gently, not longA quarter-inch ring in barely trembling liquid needs roughly 3 to 5 minutes. Tender but unbroken is a narrow window — pull them the moment a knife tip slips through without resistance.
- A cupful of brandy"Cupful" is not a standard measure in a book of this date; read it as a teacupful, and note that it is the whole cooking liquid -- the pan should be wide enough that the rings sit in one layer, part-submerged, and turned once. Some of the alcohol drives off during the simmer, though a short simmer leaves a good deal of it behind.
- Frying fat and temperatureThe book says only "hot fat" and gives no temperature; modern shallow-frying practice for this sort of thing is roughly 350-375F. Lard, dripping or clarified butter would have been the likely fats of the period; any neutral oil with a decent smoke point behaves the same.
- Finely-sifted sugarCaster or icing sugar, sifted over while the fritters are still hot so it clings. Sift it, do not spoon it, or you get patches.
- Costs and yieldThe 10d. figure is late-Victorian retail pricing and has no modern equivalent. Serves five or six as written, and the rings are best eaten within minutes of frying.
Cassell's gives at least one other "German fritters" recipe, and this one, headed "another sort", represents the leaner end of the family: no yeast batter, no bread, just fruit poached in spirit and floured. Fritters of apple rings in brandy or wine can be set alongside a broad Central European tradition of Apfelk fchle and their relatives, though no line of descent should be pinned to this dish, and English cookery books of the nineteenth century applied the label "German" loosely to almost any sweet fried batter or fruit dish that arrived through that route. The compilers routinely quoted a probable cost per dish for household budgeting, and here they excluded the spirit.