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Fritter Batter
1/2 C milk or water 1½ t Royal baking powder 2 eggs Beat eggs and add to milk and butter. Add sifted dry ingredients. Drop by spoonfuls into deep hot fat and cook until golden brown.
A plain church-supper frying batter, written for a cook who already knew what fritter batter should look like. The proportions given here are the leavening and the liquid; the body of the batter is judged by eye.
- Consistency is the real measureNo flour weight is fixed here, and none needs to be: work in sifted flour until the batter drops thickly from a spoon rather than running off it. Roughly one cup of flour to a half cup of liquid and two eggs gives that texture.
- Fat temperature"Deep hot fat" is not specified in the recipe; modern practice for fritters is generally around 365-375F. Cooler fat tends to make them soak and turn greasy; much hotter and they brown before the centre sets. A thermometer is worth more here than any timing.
- Royal baking powderIn this period Royal was a cream-of-tartar (tartrate) powder, single-acting, and the brand is still sold today in a modern double-acting formula. Any modern double-acting baking powder substitutes measure for measure, and the batter should go into the fat soon after mixing rather than standing.
- ButterThe method calls for butter but gives no quantity and does not say it is melted. If melted butter is used, cool it slightly before it meets the beaten eggs, or it will begin to set them.
- SaltMany period fritter batters included a little salt sifted in with the flour; none is listed here, and without it the fried batter tastes flat, whether the filling is sweet or savoury.
- What goes in itThis is a base batter, not a finished dish. Fold in corn kernels, chopped apple, or diced ham, or use it to coat fruit slices before frying.
- Yield and drainingDraining -- Lift them onto a rack rather than paper so the undersides stay crisp, and fry in batches so the fat does not drop below temperature.
Fritter batter was infrastructure rather than a dish: one bowl of it turned whatever the garden or the icebox had produced into supper. Corn, apples, salsify, leftover ham and canned peaches all went into the same batter. The brand name in the ingredient list is itself a period marker. Royal was among the most heavily advertised baking powders of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and contributors to community cookbooks often wrote brand names into their measurements, both from habit and because different powders of the era varied in strength.