No. 3039

Apricot or Peach Fritters with Maraschino

Beignets d'Abricots ou de Peches au Marasquin

Split a dozen fine apricots or peaches in four; remove the stones and skin, then boil up in a light syrup, but keeping them firm; drain on a cloth, wipe and fill the hollow space left by the stone with a ball of macaroon paste pounded with a little maraschino; cover over with a light layer of peach marmalade (No. 3675), roll them at once in pulverized macaroons and dip them in frying batter (No. 137), then plunge in hot frying fat and fry the fritters to a fine color; drain, wipe and dredge over with vanilla sugar and dress in a pyramid on a folded napkin. Serve separately a sauce made of puree of apricots if the fritters be of apricots, flavored with maraschino, or of peaches if the fritters are of peaches.

Another way is to peel the apricots or peaches, cut them in four, then place the pieces in a vessel with sugar, maraschino and a little vanilla syrup; one hour later drain and roll them in powdered macaroons passed through a coarse sieve. Dip the pieces in frying batter (No. 137) and immerse in hot fat, then fry to a fine color. After the paste is well fried, drain, wipe and besprinkle with vanilla sugar, then dress on a napkin and serve with the same sauce as for the above.

← No. 3038 Apple Fritters with Prunelle or with Kirsch Hot Entremets — Puddings, Fritters & Soufflés No. 3040 Brioche and Cream Fritters with Sabayon →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer assumes you have a pastry station and a numbered cross-reference at hand. Here is what the missing pieces are and where the dish can fail.

The hinge: dry fruit or no fritterPoached fruit carries a great deal of surface moisture, and batter will slide off it in the fat and leave you with naked fruit in a pan of crumbs. Drain, wipe and let the pieces air-dry on a rack before the crumb and batter coats go on.
"Split in four" versus filling the stone hollowThe two instructions conflict — a quartered apricot has no hollow left to fill. Halve the fruit for the stuffed version and reserve quartering for the second, macerated method.
Light syrupRanhofer gives no density here; something in the range of 1 part sugar to 3 parts water is a reasonable reading. The fruit needs only a brief boil-up, since he insists on keeping it firm; poach it soft and it will collapse the moment it meets hot fat.
Macaroon paste and powdered macaroonsThese are almond macaroons (amaretti-style), not coconut macaroons or French macaron shells. Pound or pulse them to a paste with a spoonful of maraschino for the filling, and crush them coarsely — Ranhofer says through a coarse sieve — for the coating.
Peach marmalade (No. 3675)A thick, reduced peach preserve, not a citrus-style marmalade. Any stiff peach or apricot jam works; if it is loose, cook it down first or it will not hold the crumbs.
Frying batter (No. 137)A light flour batter lightened with beaten egg whites; consult the cross-reference for the exact liquid and proportions. Any light tempura-style or beaten-white fritter batter serves the same purpose.
Fat temperatureThe recipe says only 'hot frying fat' and gives no figure; in modern terms aim for roughly 350-365F. Cooler and the batter drinks fat; hotter and the coating colors before the interior warms through.
Vanilla sugarGranulated or superfine sugar stored a week with a split vanilla bean. Sugar pulsed with a scraped bean and sieved gives the same effect in minutes.
Yield and serviceA dozen apricots gives roughly 24 to 48 fritters, enough for six to eight. The apricot or peach puree sauce should be sieved, sweetened lightly and flavored with maraschino off the heat, so the liqueur is not driven off.

A Little History

Maraschino here is the dry, clear cherry liqueur distilled from marasca cherries around Zadar on the Dalmatian coast — the bright red bottled cocktail cherries that later carried the name began as cherries preserved in that liqueur, so the name was inherited rather than shared. It was, by many accounts, a favored flavoring in nineteenth-century French pastry, and Charles Ranhofer, who ran the kitchen at Delmonico's in New York, reaches for it constantly in The Epicurean (1894). The book's fritter chapter runs to dozens of numbered variations on a single template: firm fruit, a liqueur, a crumb coat, batter, hot fat, and a puree of the same fruit served apart. That kind of systematic variation is the mark of the classical brigade kitchen, where a cook was expected to know the batter and the syrup by number and only needed to be told which fruit and which liqueur the evening called for.