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Fritter Batter
1 cup flour 1/4 cup milk 2 teaspoons baking powder 2 eggs 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 tablespoon lemon juice Sift flour, baking powder and salt; add well-beaten eggs, lemon juice and milk. Beat well, strain if lumpy, and leave standing several hours, over night if possible. This recipe may be used for cooked parsnips, carrots, cauliflower, raw corn and nearly all fruits.
Dip prepared vegetables or fruits in the batter, drain whole vegetables and fruits on a fork, fry in deep fat, and drain on brown paper. Mix small or chopped vegetables or fruit with the batter and drop in spoonfuls into hot fat.
A workable all-purpose fritter batter, though one instruction runs against modern practice and should be treated with suspicion.
- The overnight restResting lets the flour hydrate and relax, which does improve texture, but wet baking powder begins reacting at once and a fast-acting powder will have spent much of its lift long before morning. If you rest the batter overnight, it is safer to hold back the baking powder and whisk it in just before frying.
- Batter consistencyOne cup flour to two eggs and a quarter cup milk gives a thick, clinging coating batter, not a pourable one. If it is too stiff to coat evenly, thin it with milk a teaspoon at a time.
- Fat temperatureThe recipe only says "hot fat" and gives no figure. In modern practice 365-375F suits fritters: much below and they absorb grease and stay pale, much above and the coating browns before the interior sets. Use a thermometer and fry in small batches so the temperature does not crash.
- Depth of fat"Deep fat" means enough fat for the food to float and swim clear of the bottom. Fill the pan no more than a third to a half full, or it will boil over when wet food goes in.
- DrainingBrown paper was the standard drain; newsprint and printed paper bags are not substitutes because of the inks. Use a wire rack over a sheet pan, which keeps the underside crisp better than paper does.
- Dry the food firstCooked parsnips, carrots and cauliflower must be thoroughly drained and patted dry, and fruit blotted, or the batter slides off and the water spits in the fat. Cooked vegetables should also be cool, not warm.
- Raw cornCorn cut from the cob releases liquid into the batter and will loosen it; if it thins too much, add a spoonful of flour rather than more corn.
- YieldRoughly 1 1/2 cups of batter, enough to coat about a pound of prepared fruit or vegetables, or perhaps 16-20 small dropped fritters. Serve immediately; fritters do not hold.
Fritter batter sits in the entrée section here because in early twentieth-century American service an entrée was a made dish set between the fish and the roast, and fried fritters, croquettes and timbales filled that slot cheaply and neatly. Lowney's Cook Book (Maria Willett Howard, published by the Walter M. Lowney Company, a Boston chocolate maker) is a promotional cookbook, and alongside the branded chocolate recipes it carries a complete general household repertoire. The recipe's real interest is its versatility: one batter for parsnips, cauliflower, corn and "nearly all fruits." The lemon juice may be doing more than flavoring; acid is generally held to weaken gluten somewhat, which would help keep a long-standing batter tender.