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Plain Fritter Batter
1 cup flour 1 1/2 teaspoons Royal Baking Powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 egg 2/3 cup milk Sift dry ingredients together; add beaten egg and milk; beat until smooth.
A basic drop batter for coating fruit or vegetables, or for spoon fritters. It is thin by modern standards, which is deliberate.
- Baking powderRoyal was a cream-of-tartar (tartrate) powder, which acts fast and only once; any modern double-acting baking powder works at the same 1 1/2 teaspoons. Whichever you use, mix the batter and fry it promptly.
- FlourUse plain all-purpose flour. If you substitute self-rising, leave out both the baking powder and the salt.
- ConsistencyOne cup flour to 2/3 cup milk gives a batter that ribbons off the spoon and clings thinly to fruit. For a heavier coating add flour a tablespoon at a time; for apple rings or bananas it should be thin enough to see the fruit through.
- Do not overbeat"Beat until smooth" means just that and no further. Working the gluten makes fritters tough and leathery rather than light; lumps the size of a pinhead are harmless.
- Frying temperatureThe book assumes deep fat judged by eye. Use 365-375F. Below that the batter drinks oil; above it, the outside colors before the inside sets.
- YieldAbout 1 1/4 cups of batter — enough to coat two large apples or three bananas, or to make roughly a dozen spoon fritters.
- Sweet or savoryThe batter as given is unsweetened, so it serves for corn, oysters or clams as readily as for fruit. For dessert fritters, add a tablespoon of sugar and dust the finished fritters with powdered sugar rather than sweetening the batter heavily, which encourages scorching.
The Royal Cook Book was a promotional cookbook of the early twentieth century, published by the Royal Baking Powder Company and given away or sold cheaply to put its product into American kitchens — hence the brand name written into the ingredient list of even the plainest formula. Fritters occupied a useful place in the household repertoire of that era: a cup of flour and an egg turned leftover fruit, corn or a handful of oysters into a hot dish, and deep frying was ordinary practice on a coal or gas range. The chemical-leavened batter here may suggest a move away from the older English fritter, which relied on yeast or on stiffly beaten egg whites for lift; baking powder made the result reliable for cooks who had no time to wait on a sponge.