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Corn Fritters
2 cups scraped corn. 2 level teaspoons Calumet Baking Powder 1/2 cup flour 2 beaten eggs 1/2 teaspoon salt te Pinch pepper 1/2 cup milk 1 tablespoon melted butter Sift dry ingredients thoroughly, rub in butter and add liquids, beat well and fry.
A promotional recipe from a baking powder company, printed tersely and with one glaring omission: the corn itself never appears in the ingredient list. Everything else is a straightforward fritter batter.
- The missing cornThe title promises corn and the method does not mention it. Work in about 2 cups of kernels — fresh cut from 3 to 4 ears, or one 15-oz can drained well, or thawed frozen corn patted dry. Add it last, after the batter is beaten, so the kernels stay whole.
- Batter consistencyHalf a cup of flour to half a cup of milk plus two eggs gives a loose batter that only holds together once the corn is folded in. If it still runs off the spoon, add flour a tablespoon at a time; wet corn is the usual culprit.
- Baking powderCalumet was a double-acting powder and any modern double-acting baking powder substitutes one for one. Two level teaspoons to half a cup of flour is a heavy dose by current standards; 1 teaspoon is plenty, and more can leave a faintly metallic edge.
- "Rub in butter"The instruction assumes solid butter cut into the dry mix, but the ingredient list says melted. Melted is easier: whisk it into the milk and eggs and combine with the sifted dry ingredients in one go.
- "And fry"The recipe does not say how. Batters of this kind are usually deep-fried, dropped by rounded tablespoons, 2 to 3 minutes until deep gold and cooked through, or pan-fried in a quarter inch of fat, about 2 minutes a side. Fry a single test fritter first to check seasoning and doneness.
- YieldAbout 12 to 14 small fritters, serving three or four as a side dish. Corn fritters were commonly served alongside fried chicken or ham, and sometimes with syrup.
- Serve at onceFritters raised with baking powder collapse and go heavy as they cool. Hold finished ones on a rack in a 200F oven for a few minutes at most rather than stacking them on paper.
This comes from a class of cookbook that flourished in the United States from the 1890s through the 1930s: the branded recipe pamphlet, given away or sold cheaply by a manufacturer, in which the leavened recipes typically name the company's own product. Calumet Baking Powder, made in Chicago from the 1880s and later absorbed into General Foods, competed hard against Royal and Rumford in an era when cooks were still being persuaded that chemical leavening was reliable, hence the insistent "2 level teaspoons" à point, promoted alongside the standardized measuring cup. Corn fritters were an obvious vehicle: cheap, quick, made from a summer glut or a can, and dependent on a good rise to keep them light. The dropped ingredient may suggest that these pamphlets were compiled fast and proofread loosely, though that is a guess rather than a documented fact; the recipes assume a cook who already knows what a corn fritter is.