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Sponge Fritters
2 2/3 cups flour 1/3 cup sugar 7/8 cup scalded milk 1/3 yeast cake, dissolved in 2 tablespoons lukewarm water Currant jelly 1/3 cup melted butter ¼ teaspoon salt 2 eggs Grated rind 1/2 lemon Quince marmalade Make a sponge of one-half the flour, sugar, milk, and dissolved yeast cake; let rise to double its bulk. Add remaining ingredients and let rise again. Toss on a floured board, roll to one-fourth inch thickness, shape with a small biscuit cutter (first dipped in flour), cover, and let rise on board. Take each piece and hollow in centre to form a nest. In one-half the pieces put one-half teaspoon of currant jelly and quince marmalade mixed in the proportion of one part jelly to two parts marmalade. Brush with milk edges of filled pieces. Cover with unfilled pieces and press edges closely together with fingers first dipped in flour. If this is not carefully done fritters will separate during frying. Fry in deep fat, drain on brown paper, and sprinkle with pow dered sugar.
This is a filled yeast doughnut rather than a batter fritter: two rounds of enriched dough sealed around jam and fried. The seal is the whole job.
- Missing quantitiesThe salt reads as one-quarter teaspoon, matching the printed page. The ingredient list still gives no amounts for flour, sugar, milk or the yeast cake, so work from a standard enriched sweet-dough proportion if you attempt it.
- Yeast cakeA compressed yeast cake of the period was roughly 0.6 oz fresh yeast, equivalent to about 2 teaspoons of active dry or 1 1/2 teaspoons instant. Dissolving it in lukewarm water, as directed, is still the right approach for fresh or active dry; instant can go straight into the flour.
- Make a spongeThe first stage is a true sponge: half the flour with the sugar, milk and yeast, left until doubled. It is not optional flourish. It builds flavour and slackens the gluten before the butter and eggs go in, which is what keeps an enriched dough from turning tough.
- The hinge -- sealing the edgesBrush the milk only on the border of the filled round, keep the filling well back from the edge, and press with floured fingers until the two discs are genuinely welded. A leaking seam dumps hot jam into the fat and the fritter comes apart, exactly as the text warns.
- The fillingOne part currant jelly to two parts quince marmalade gives a stiff, tart paste that will not run. Quince marmalade of this period was generally a thick, stiff preserve, closer to membrillo than to citrus marmalade; a firm apricot or quince preserve is the nearest substitute.
- Frying temperatureThe recipe says only "fry in deep fat" and gives no temperature. For a yeast-raised dough, somewhere around 360-370F suits: hotter and the outside colours before the centre sets, cooler and the dough drinks oil. A few minutes total, turning once, and a pale band around the equator suggests the proof was good.
- Draining and sugaringBrown paper here means plain unbleached paper; a wire rack over a tray works better, keeping the underside from steaming. Sugar them while still warm so the powdered sugar clings.
- Third rise on the boardAfter shaping with the cutter, the rounds are covered and left to rise on the board before they are hollowed, filled and sealed. Do not skip that rise; skipping it gives a dense, greasy result.
The dish is kin to the Central European filled doughnut -- the Berliner, the pączek, the Bavarian Krapfen -- made here by sealing two cut rounds around the jam rather than injecting the filling after frying. Quinces were a common dooryard fruit, and their high pectin made them a reliable setter of preserves before commercial pectin was widely sold.