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Banana Fritters II
3 bananas. 1 cup bread flour. 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 tablespoon powdered sugar ¼ teaspoon salt 1/4 cup milk 1 egg 1 tablespoon lemon juice Mix and sift dry ingredients. Beat egg until light, add milk, and combine mixtures; then add lemon juice and banana fruit forced through a sieve. Drop by spoonfuls, fry in deep fat, and drain. Serve with Lemon Sauce.
A drop-batter fritter rather than a dipped banana slice: the fruit is pushed through a sieve into the batter, so the result is closer to a fried banana puff. A few points on proportions and frying.
- Flour and banana quantitiesAs printed, the ingredient list gives no amount for either flour or banana, so the ratios must be judged by feel. Aim for a batter thick enough to hold its shape on the spoon; something like a cup of flour and two or three ripe bananas is a reasonable guess at what the leavening and liquid given here were meant to carry, but the original amounts are missing and cannot be recovered from this page.
- "Powdered sugar"In this book powdered sugar means fine granulated sugar, not the cornstarch-cut confectioners' sugar sold under that name today. Ordinary granulated works; confectioners' sugar will make the batter slightly softer.
- SaltThe salt is a quarter teaspoon. The batter is small and sweet, and more than that will read as salty.
- Deep fat temperatureThe recipe gives no temperature, only 'fry in deep fat.' For an uncooked batter, moderate fat is wanted: cooler and the fritters soak, hotter and the outside colors before the raw center sets. The period bread-cube test allowed roughly a minute for the cube to brown when frying uncooked mixtures such as this.
- Size and timingDrop by rounded teaspoonfuls, not tablespoonfuls — large spoonfuls stay doughy inside. Two to three minutes total, turning once, until deep gold.
- Lemon juice lastThe order given adds the acid after the milk and egg, which limits how much of the leavening is used up in the bowl. Fry the batter soon after mixing.
- DrainingDrain on a rack over paper rather than directly on paper, so the undersides do not steam soft.
- YieldNo yield is given; expect a modest number of small fritters. Lemon Sauce is a separate recipe elsewhere in the book, and should be consulted there rather than assumed.