No. 3036

Alliance Fritters

Beignets Alliance

Cut six medium-sized apples in transversal slices three-eighths of an inch thick; remove the cores with a column tube, cut away the edges with a two inch in diameter vegetable cutter so as to have all the rounds of the same size; fry them in butter over a brisk fire, drain and wipe. Drain as many halves of stewed peaches as there are slices of apples, fill the hollow in the apples with apple jelly (No. 3668). Prepare a fine paste with the same quantity of dry macaroons as apple paste, and pound well together with a few spoonfuls of maraschino, and with this paste fill the center of the halved peaches, and fasten these on to the rounds of apple; cover the other side of the apple with the macaroon paste to have the whole form a ball; roll them in cracker dust, and then dip in frying batter (No. 137) and plunge into hot frying fat. When the paste has become dry and well browned, drain the fritters on to a cloth, besprinkle with sugar, and lay them on a tart dish to place in the oven in order that they may glaze. Serve separately a pineapple syrup: Put half a pint of apple pulp that has been passed through a fine sieve into a saucepan, and dilute it with three gills of syrup, boil up for one minute, and then thicken this sauce with a spoonful of fecula diluted in a little cold water; remove it at once from the fire, flavor well with kirsch, and add half a pint of pineapple cut in three-sixteenths of an inch squares; keep the sauce hot until needed.

← No. 3035 Flawn au Lion d'Or Hot Entremets — Puddings, Fritters & Soufflés No. 3037 Apple Fritters and Montagnard Fritters—Glaze →

For the Modern Kitchen

A composed Delmonico's fritter: apple rings sandwiched with macaroon paste and a stewed peach half, battered and fried into a ball. The construction matters more than the cooking, and it wants a chilling step the original never mentions.

The hinge: chill before batteringAssembled balls of soft fruit and macaroon paste will slump or split in the fat. Once shaped and rolled in cracker crumbs, refrigerate them until firm, at least 30 minutes, before dipping in batter.
Gills and syrupA gill is half a cup, so three gills is 1½ cups of sugar syrup to half a pint (1 cup) of sieved apple pulp. That gives a thin, sweet sauce; reduce the syrup if you want it less cloying.
FeculaNineteenth-century French kitchens meant potato starch. Cornstarch works in the same proportion; slake it in cold water, stir in, and take the pan off the heat as soon as it thickens, as the recipe insists.
Column tube and vegetable cutterAn apple corer and a 2-inch round cutter. Cut the rings 3/8 inch thick as directed, thinner and they tear when you core and trim them.
Cracker dustFinely crushed plain soda or water crackers, not sweetened graham. Dry macaroons means hard almond macaroons of the Italian type, pounded to crumbs, not soft coconut ones.
Frying temperatureRanhofer says only "hot frying fat." For a battered fritter, something in the region of 350-360F suits: hotter and the batter colors before the macaroon center warms through; cooler and the shell absorbs fat and softens.
Glazing in the ovenThe dusting of sugar is meant to melt to a gloss; the recipe sends the fritters to the oven for this. A few minutes under a hot broiler, watched constantly, does the same, though a hot oven as written risks drying them.
Cross-referencesNo. 137 is Ranhofer's frying batter and No. 3668 his apple jelly. Any standard beer or milk fritter batter and a firm commercial apple jelly stand in without harm.
YieldSix apples yield roughly a dozen rings after trimming, and each fritter is built on one ring, so about a dozen fritters. Serve with the pineapple syrup passed separately, as directed.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of thirty-odd years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and this fritter shows the house style exactly: fruit turned into architecture, held together with macaroon paste and named for something outside the kitchen. Ranhofer gives no explanation of the name, which may simply describe the union of apple and peach in one ball. What is on the page is the technique: maraschino and kirsch, both cherry-based, and pounded dry macaroons as the binder.