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Fried Drop Cakes
1 1/3 cups flour 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/3 cup sugar 1/2 cup milk 1 egg 1 teaspoon melted butter Beat egg until light; add milk, dry ingredients mixed and sifted, and melted butter. Drop by spoonfuls in hot, new, deep fat; fry until light brown and cooked through, which must at first be determined by piercing with a skewer, or breaking apart. Remove with a skimmer, and drain on brown paper.
A plain drop doughnut batter, thick enough to hold its shape when spooned into fat. The whole recipe turns on fat temperature.
- Fat temperature"Hot, new, deep fat" means roughly 365-375F. Below that the cakes soak up grease before they set; much above it the outside browns while the centre is still raw batter. The original has you check by piercing with a skewer or breaking one open.
- "New" fatFresh, unused fat, not fat carried over from frying fish or onions. Previously used fat also has a lower smoke point and darkens the cakes faster than they cook.
- Depth and batch sizeUse at least 2 inches of fat in a heavy pot, filled no more than halfway, and fry five or six at a time. Crowding drops the temperature sharply and gives greasy cakes.
- Test cake firstFry one alone and cut it open before committing the batch. That single cake tells you both the temperature and the right spoon size; roughly a rounded tablespoon of batter cooks through in 2 to 3 minutes, turning once.
- EquipmentA skimmer is a slotted spoon or wire spider. Brown paper was the period draining surface; paper towels or a rack over a tray do the same job better.
- Baking powderOlder powders were largely single-acting and released their gas as soon as the batter was wetted, so mix and fry promptly rather than letting it stand. The 2 1/2 teaspoons here is generous but workable.
- Yield and servingAbout 15 to 18 small cakes. Best eaten within an hour, rolled in granulated or cinnamon sugar while still warm.