Bell Fritters
2 cups Gold Medal flour 1 teaspoon salt 2 cups water 3-tablespoons butter 4 eggs Heat water, salt and butter to the boiling point; when boiling stir in the flour, all at once, and stir briskly. When the mixture leaves the sides of pan remove from the fire and add 1 unbeaten egg, beat, add another and beat, and so on until you have used the four. Set aside to cool. Drop by spoonfuls into boiling fat.
This is a plain choux paste fried rather than baked, and it behaves exactly like cream puff dough. The recipe gives no frying temperature, no timing and no yield, so those are the gaps worth filling.
- The hinge: fat temperatureFry at 360-375F. Hotter and the outside colors long before the inside sets, leaving a raw doughy center; cooler and the fritters absorb fat instead of puffing. Use enough fat that the fritters can float and turn freely.
- They swell a great dealChoux paste expands to several times its raw volume in hot fat. Use a rounded teaspoon rather than a tablespoon, and fry only five or six at a time so the pan temperature holds.
- TimingFour to six minutes, turning as they roll over, until deep golden and hollow-sounding. Break one open before frying the rest; the interior should be webbed and dry, not custardy.
- Cooling before the eggs"Set aside to cool" applies to the finished paste, but the dough also needs to drop below scalding before the first egg goes in or the egg will set in threads. Let it stand two or three minutes off the heat, then beat the eggs in one at a time as directed.
- Flour measureTwo cups of flour scooped and leveled is roughly 8-10 oz (230-285 g). Gold Medal was milled from hard spring wheat, so ordinary all-purpose is a reasonable substitute.
- ButterThree tablespoons in two cups of water is a lean paste by modern choux standards, which usually run closer to a stick per cup of liquid. Expect a firm, less rich fritter; that is what the recipe intends.
- Yield and servingThe recipe gives no yield; a batch this size should make several dozen small fritters. There is no sugar in the dough, so they are finished after frying: drained on paper, then rolled in powdered or cinnamon sugar, or served with syrup or a fruit sauce.
Bell fritters turn up under that name in American cookbooks, and the same batter appears elsewhere as "French fritters" or simply fried cream puffs; the name is often said to come from the bell-like shape the paste takes as it swells and rounds in the fat. Four eggs beaten one at a time into a cooked flour-and-water paste are the only leavening, so the fritter rises without yeast, soda or baking powder. It is the same principle as a cream puff.