Home › Fritters › Apple Fritters
Apple Fritters
4 large apples 2 tablespoons powdered sugar 1 tablespoon lemon juice Peel and core apples and cut into slices; add sugar and lemon juice. Dip each slice in plain fritter batter. Fry to light brown in deep fat. Drain and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
A skeleton recipe that assumes you already know the house fritter batter, which in a Royal Baking Powder book means flour, baking powder, salt, milk and egg. A few specifics make the difference between crisp rings and greasy ones.
- The hinge: fat temperatureDeep fat should be 365-375F. Cooler and the batter drinks oil before it sets; hotter and the coating colors long before the apple softens. Fry in small batches so the temperature does not crash.
- Plain fritter batterA typical plain fritter batter of this period runs to roughly 1 cup flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1 egg and about 1/2 cup milk, beaten smooth; follow the book's own entry where it is given. It should coat a slice and cling rather than run off in sheets.
- Powdered sugarIn American books of this period 'powdered sugar' may mean a fine granulated or superfine sugar rather than the modern confectioners'/10X grade. Either will serve here, both for the maceration and for the finishing dusting.
- Cutting the applesThe recipe says only to peel, core and slice. If you cut crosswise into rings, about a quarter inch is a workable thickness: thinner slices soften a great deal inside the batter, much thicker ones can stay firm at the centre.
- Choice of appleA firm tart variety holds its shape and balances the sugar. Granny Smith, Braeburn or Northern Spy work; soft eating apples like Red Delicious go to pulp.
- The sugar and lemon stepLet the slices sit in the sugar and juice 15-30 minutes, then blot them dry before dipping. Surface moisture keeps the batter from adhering and makes the fat spit.
- DrainingDrain on a rack over a sheet pan rather than on paper, which traps steam and softens the underside. Dust with sugar while still hot so it clings.
- YieldFour large apples make enough for four to six as a dessert or breakfast dish; the number of slices depends entirely on how thick you cut them. Best eaten within minutes of frying.
Fritters are one of the oldest surviving ways of cooking fruit in a European kitchen, and apple was a common choice: cheap, stored well through winter, and firm enough to survive a bath of hot fat. By the time this book appeared, the fritter section was a fixture in American household cookery, and the batter had shifted from the yeast-raised or egg-white-leavened versions of the nineteenth century to a quick chemically leavened one. Volumes issued under the Royal name were produced to promote baking powder, and the recipes reflect that purpose. The brevity here is typical of the genre: individual recipes often note only what makes them different.