Peach Fritters
INGREDIENTS for dish for 4 persons. For the batter, lb. of flour, oz. of butter, saltspoonful of salt, 2 eggs, milk. Peaches, about 6, hot lard or clarified dripping. AVERAGE COST, 1s.
Make a nice smooth batter; skin, halve and stone the peaches, which should be quite ripe; dip them in the batter, and fry the pieces in hot lard or clarified dripping, which should be boiling before the peaches are put in. From 8 to 10 minutes will be required to fry them; when done, drain them before the fire. Dish them on a white d'oyley. Strew over plenty of pounded sugar, and serve.
TIME. From 8 to 10 minutes to fry the fritters, 5 minutes to drain them.
SEASONABLE in July, August and September.
A straightforward fruit fritter from the era when frying was done in lard or beef dripping and fritters were dished on a doily to blot the fat. The batter quantities need reconstructing, but the method is sound.
- Batter proportionsThe printed amounts for flour, butter and salt have lost their fractions, so take them from standard Beeton practice: about 4 oz (1 cup) flour, 1/2 oz (1 tbsp) melted butter, a pinch of salt, 2 eggs, and milk to a coating consistency — roughly 1/2 cup, added gradually. It should ribbon thickly off the spoon, not run off.
- Rest the batterHalf an hour's rest after mixing relaxes the gluten and gives a lighter, less leathery coating. Beeton does not say so, but it makes a visible difference.
- Frying timeEight to ten minutes is far too long for a halved peach in a modern deep pan. At 350-360F, halves take 3-4 minutes and quarters 2-3, until the batter is deep gold.
- Fat temperature"Boiling" fat means hot enough that a drop of batter sizzles and rises at once — around 350F. Below that the batter drinks fat; much above 375F and the coating browns before the fruit heats through.
- Clarified drippingBeef dripping or lard both work and give the traditional flavour. Any refined oil with a high smoke point substitutes directly; do not use butter, which will burn at these temperatures.
- Skinning the peachesThirty seconds in boiling water and a plunge into cold will slip the skins from ripe freestone peaches. Underripe fruit resists peeling and stays sour inside the batter, so use fruit that yields to a thumb.
- Pounded sugar and servingPounded sugar is simply caster or superfine sugar. The d'oyley — a linen or paper mat — was a serving nicety, though it would catch some surplus fat; a rack over paper drains better. Six peaches gives about twelve fritters, enough for four, and they must go to the table at once.
Fritters of this kind are among the oldest sweet dishes in English cookery, batter-dipped fruit having been fried in hot fat since the medieval period, when apples were the standard filling. Peaches appear in Victorian household books as a luxury of the walled garden and the glasshouse: Beeton's note that they are seasonable in July, August and September reflects English-grown fruit ripened against a south wall or under glass, not imports. The instruction to drain the fritters before the fire and dish them on a doily belongs to a kitchen where deep frying was messy and imprecise, and where managing surplus fat before the plate reached the dining room was part of the cook's craft.