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Raspberry Fritters
Bruise some fresh raspberries, sweeten them, and draw off the juice. Crumble two sponge biscuits, pour over them half a gill of boiling cream or milk, and leave them in a cool place for half an hour. Beat thoroughly the yolks of four eggs, mix them with the biscuits, and add as much raspberry-juice as will make the batter a bright pink colour. Take the fritters up in a dessert-spoon, lay them carefully in boiling fat, and fry them till they are set. Drain them, lay them on a dish, garnish half of them with sliced almonds, and the other half with sliced candied peel or fruit, and ornament the dish with bright-coloured sweets of any kind. Time to fry, three or four minutes. Probable cost, 1s. 6d. Sufficient for five or six persons.
An unusual fritter: no flour at all, just sponge biscuit softened in cream and bound with yolks, so the batter is closer to a loose custard than a dough. Everything depends on getting it thick enough to hold its shape when it hits the fat.
- The hinge: batter consistencyRaspberry juice is added for colour, but every spoonful also thins the mixture. Add it a teaspoon at a time and stop the moment the pink is bright — a batter that slumps will disperse in the fat rather than setting into a fritter. If it goes too far, crumble in more biscuit rather than adding flour.
- Half a gillA gill is a quarter of an imperial pint, so half a gill is about 2 1/2 fl oz, a scant third of a cup. Pour it boiling over the crumbs so they swell fully before the yolks go in.
- Sponge biscuitsThese are the dry finger biscuits sold now as savoiardi or ladyfingers, not soft sponge cake. Two of them come to roughly 20-30 g depending on size. Trifle sponges will work but hold more moisture, so hold back some of the cream.
- Frying temperatureThe book says only "boiling fat" and gives no figure; for a sweet fritter something in the region of 350F suits. Hotter and the outside colours before the yolk-heavy centre sets; cooler and the batter drinks fat. Fry in small batches so the temperature does not crash.
- Dropping the frittersA Victorian dessert-spoon holds roughly two teaspoons. Dip the spoon in the hot fat first so the batter slides off cleanly, and do not move the fritters for the first thirty seconds while a skin forms.
- Raspberry juiceBruise and sweeten the fruit, then strain through a fine sieve or muslin rather than squeezing hard — pulp and seeds make the batter grainy and pale rather than bright.
- Almonds and peelSliced almonds are best toasted lightly first; raw flaked almonds on a hot fritter taste of nothing. The "candied peel or fruit" means citron, orange peel or glacé cherries, cut into fine strips.
- ServingFive or six portions as written, and they must go to the table at once. Custard-set fritters weep and soften within a few minutes of draining, so fry them last — bearing in mind the recipe wants them dished and garnished before they go out.
Cassell's belongs to the great age of the English fritter, when the word covered anything from apple rings in batter to these flourless spoonfuls of sweetened sponge and yolk — a family that also includes the beignets soufflés and "fritters of cream" found in earlier French and English confectionery books. The sponge biscuit is the key period detail: dry finger biscuits, sold as Naples biscuits or Savoy biscuits through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, were a standard store-cupboard item used to thicken creams, line trifles and stretch puddings, much as a modern cook might reach for breadcrumbs. Note too that the raspberry juice here is wanted chiefly for colour rather than flavour, and the finished dish is dressed with almonds, candied peel and "bright-coloured sweets of any kind" — Victorian dessert courses were judged by the eye as much as the palate. The costing of 1s. 6d., given as a matter of course throughout the book, reflects Cassell's audience of middle-class households running to a strict weekly budget.