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Raspberry Fritters
Put one cup of flour into a bowl, then add the beaten yolks of three eggs and a gill of cold water. Beat till light, and add one teaspoon salt. Beat one pint of raspberries with an egg-beater until thoroughly broken, then beat the whites of two eggs to a stiff froth, add them to the batter, then add the fruit and one and one-half teaspoon of baking powder. Have ready your hot lard, drop a spoonful at a time, drain on brown paper, and dredge with powdered sugar.
A loose, fruit-heavy fritter batter that has to be fried the moment it is mixed. Everything else is straightforward.
- Mix last, fry firstThe baking powder goes in at the very end, after the whipped whites and the crushed fruit. Have the fat already at temperature before you add it, and fry immediately — the batter deflates and slackens within minutes as the raspberry juice works through it.
- A gillHalf a cup, four fluid ounces. Combined with one cup of flour and three yolks this gives a thick drop batter; the crushed berries thin it considerably.
- Fat temperatureNo temperature is given; the recipe says only 'hot lard.' Around 365-375F suits a batter like this. Below that the fritters soak; much above and the outside colors before the wet berry batter sets.
- LardStill available and a good choice here for flavor. Any neutral frying oil works; butter, with its low smoke point, does not.
- One teaspoon of saltFull-strength by modern taste for a sweet fritter of this size; half a teaspoon may suit better, particularly as the finished fritters are dredged in sugar.
- Egg accountingThree yolks, two whites: you are left with a spare white, which the recipe never calls for.
- DrainingBrown paper of the grocery-bag sort, absorbent and to hand. A wire rack set over a sheet pan drains better and keeps the undersides from steaming soft.
- YieldAbout 18 to 20 spoon-sized fritters, enough for four to six. They are best within a few minutes of frying; the sugar dredge should go on while they are still hot.
Fritters occupy an unusually large place in American cookbooks of the turn of the century, when deep frying had become manageable at home: cast-iron kettles, cheap rendered lard, and a stove steady enough to hold a fat bath without a hearth fire. The technique of folding whipped whites into a batter while also relying on chemical leavening reflects the general availability of baking powder by this date.