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Banana Fritters
1 cup flour 2 teaspoons Royal Baking Powder 1 tablespoon powdered sugar 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 egg 1/4 cup milk 1 tablespoon lemon juice 3 bananas Mix and sift dry ingredients. Add others in order. Force bananas through a sieve before adding. Beat thoroughly. Drop by spoonfuls into hot fat. Drain and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
A stiff drop batter with the banana worked in as purée rather than in slices — closer to a sweet beignet than the sliced-and-dipped fritter most people expect. The batter's consistency is the thing to watch.
- Fat temperatureThe book says only "hot fat"; for drop fritters this is usually taken as somewhere around 365–375F. Much below that they absorb grease and can stay raw in the centre; much hotter and the outside browns before the batter sets. A thermometer helps, and frying in small batches keeps the temperature from crashing.
- Sieving the bananasForcing ripe bananas through a sieve gives a smooth purée with no fibre or lumps. A food mill, potato ricer or a few pulses in a food processor does the same job; a fork mash gives a coarser result.
- Batter thicknessThree bananas is the loosest measure here — sizes vary widely. Aim for a batter that holds its shape on the spoon and drops off reluctantly. If it slumps, work in flour a tablespoon at a time; if it will not drop, add milk sparingly.
- Royal Baking PowderThis is a promotional book, hence the brand name. Royal was a cream-of-tartar powder rather than a modern double-acting one; a modern baking powder can be substituted measure for measure, though the batter will behave a little differently. The lemon juice is small in quantity and reads as flavouring; it may also slow the browning of the banana.
- Powdered sugarPeriod American usage is not consistent: "powdered sugar" could mean a finely pulverised granulated sugar as well as what we now call confectioners' or icing sugar. Modern confectioners' sugar will serve for both the batter and the finishing dusting.
- Frying and drainingTwo to three minutes total, turning once when the underside is deep gold. Drain on a rack rather than paper so the crust stays crisp, and dust with sugar while still warm so it clings.
- YieldAbout 16 to 18 fritters the size of a walnut, serving four. They collapse as they cool and are best eaten within minutes of frying.
The New Royal Cook Book was published by the Royal Baking Powder Company, one of a long line of free or near-free promotional cookbooks that American food manufacturers used to teach home cooks a method that required their product. The brand's interest lay in showing its product in as many contexts as possible — hence a fritter chapter, where baking powder does work that yeast or beaten egg white had traditionally done. Bananas themselves signal the period: by the 1910s and 1920s steamship refrigeration and the United Fruit Company had made them cheap and ordinary in northern American cities, and cookbooks moved them briskly from exotic curiosity to something you might have three of going soft on the counter. Pushing the fruit through a sieve rather than slicing it produces a fritter that tastes of banana throughout rather than a batter shell around a hot slice.