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Orange Fritters
Mix two table-spoonfuls of flour smoothly with one well-beaten egg, a quarter of an ounce of butter, and a quarter of a pint of cream, and add a pinch of salt and a dessert-spoonful of brandy. Peel four or five large sweet oranges; take away the white pith, and divide them into sections without breaking the thin skin that separates them. Dip the pieces first into sherry then into sifted sugar, and afterwards into the batter. Fry them in hot fat until they are lightly browned. Drain them on blotting-paper to free them entirely from fat, and serve piled high on a hot napkin, with sifted sugar strewn over them. Time, eight or ten minutes to fry the oranges. Probable cost, 1s., exclusive of the wine and brandy. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A thin cream batter around raw orange segments, fried and dusted with sugar. The whole thing depends on getting the fruit dry enough for the batter to cling.
- The measurementsTwo tablespoons of flour is about 1 oz; a quarter of a pint in an English book of this period is 5 fl oz, so a generous half cup of cream. A quarter ounce of butter is about half a tablespoon, melted. A dessert-spoonful of brandy is roughly two teaspoons.
- The hinge: dry fruitSegments dipped in sherry and then sugar will weep, and wet fruit sheds batter into the fat. Blot each segment on a cloth after the sherry dip, sugar it, and coat and fry in small batches rather than sugaring the whole lot in advance.
- Frying temperatureThe recipe says only "hot fat" and gives no figure; modern practice for fritters of this kind is around 350-375F. Below that the thin batter absorbs grease; above it the sugar clinging to the fruit can scorch before the coating sets.
- Read the timing as a totalThe timing -- "eight or ten minutes to fry the oranges" most likely covers the whole batch rather than each fritter. Individual pieces take a minute or two a side, until pale gold. Longer and the orange collapses inside its membrane.
- Batter consistencyOne egg, 1 oz flour and 5 fl oz cream gives a very loose batter, closer to crepe batter than a coating batter. If it slides off the fruit, hold back some of the cream or let the batter stand 20 minutes to thicken as the flour hydrates.
- Choosing the oranges"Large sweet oranges" means eating oranges rather than bitter Sevilles. Navels are seedless and easy to segment, but thin-skinned varieties tear; chill the fruit briefly and peel with a knife rather than by hand to keep the membranes whole.
- Sifted sugar and blotting paperSifted sugar is caster sugar for the dip and can be either caster or confectioner's for the finish. Use paper towels in place of blotting paper, and serve straight away — these go soft within minutes.
- YieldFour or five oranges gives roughly 40 to 60 segments; the recipe reckons this sufficient for four or five persons.
Fruit fritters were among the oldest sweet uses of a deep pan, and orange fritters appear in English cookery well before Cassell's. Serving fried food "piled high on a hot napkin" was standard Victorian practice, the folded linen absorbing residual fat at table where a modern cook would simply use a rack.