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Cherry Fritters
2 cups scalded milk ¼ cup corn-starch 1/4 cup flour 1/2 cup sugar ¼ teaspoon salt 1/4 cup cold milk Yolks 3 eggs ½ cup Maraschino cherries, cut in halves Mix corn-starch, flour, sugar, and salt. Dilute with cold milk and add beaten yolks; then add gradually to scalded milk and cook fifteen minutes in double boiler. Add cher ries, pour into a buttered shallow tin, and cool. Turn on a board, cut in squares, dip in flour, egg, and crumbs, fry in deep fat, and drain. Serve with Maraschino Sauce. 2/3 cup boiling water 1/3 cup sugar 2 tablespoons corn-starch 1/4 cup Maraschino cherries, cut in halves 1/2 cup Maraschino syrup 1/2 tablespoon butter Mix sugar and corn-starch, add gradually to boiling water, stirring constantly. Boil five minutes, and add cherries, syrup, and butter.
This is fried custard "cream fritters" with cherries folded in — a stiff cornstarch pastry cream chilled solid, cut, breaded and deep-fried. Almost everything depends on getting the base firm enough to handle.
- The hinge: chill it hard"Cool" in the original means thoroughly cold, not room temperature. Spread the custard about 3/4 inch deep and refrigerate at least 4 hours, preferably overnight; a soft centre will burst in the fat and spit.
- Quantities checkedThe cornstarch, salt, and cherry quantities were checked against the printed page and read as our text now gives them: 1/4 cup cornstarch, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 cup of halved cherries.
- Fifteen minutes in the double boilerThat is not padding. Cornstarch and flour both need sustained heat to lose their raw taste and set fully; stir often and expect a very stiff, glossy paste that pulls from the sides.
- Frying temperatureThe recipe says only "deep fat" and gives no test. A modern equivalent for this sort of fritter is around 375F: below that the crumb coat absorbs grease before the inside warms, above it the coating colours before the custard has softened. Fry in small batches and drain on paper.
- Breading orderFlour, then beaten whole egg thinned with a spoonful of water, then fine dry crumbs. Chill the breaded squares another 20 minutes before frying so the coating sets and seals.
- Maraschino cherriesTraditionally these were marasca cherries preserved in maraschino liqueur, sharp and faintly bitter, though cheaper brined and dyed imitations were already on the American market by the early 1900s. Modern supermarket maraschinos are brined, bleached and sweetened, with no liqueur at all; for the intended flavour use Italian-style cherries in syrup, and reserve their syrup for the sauce.
- The sauceBoiling cornstarch five minutes is correct for a clear, thickened syrup rather than a cloudy one. Add the butter off the heat so it stays emulsified and glossy.
- YieldThe custard makes roughly six to eight servings as a sweet course, depending on how deep it is spread and how large the squares are cut.
Fried custard has a long European pedigree — Italian crema fritta, Spanish leche frita, French crème frite. The maraschino cherries mark the recipe as a fashionable one: the name comes from the Dalmatian marasca cherry and the clear liqueur distilled from it, and imported liqueur-steeped cherries were a luxury garnish in turn-of-the-century American kitchens, well before the bleached and dyed domestic version displaced them.