No. 3042

Cherry Fritters—Fresh or Brandied

Beignets de Cerises Fraiches ou a l'Eau-de-vie

Select some large and fine fresh cherries, remove the pits and lay the fruit in a bowl to sprinkle over with sugar, pour on a few spoonfuls of kirsch and let macerate for one hour. Then drain and thread eight of them on a silver skewer or a straw; roll these in lady finger dust and dip in frying batter (No. 137); plunge them into hot frying fat and when the paste is fried and well colored drain off the fritters on a cloth, sponge them and dredge over with vanilla sugar, then dress them in a pyramid on a folded napkin. Serve at the same time a cherry sauce made with cherry puree and flavored with kirsch.

For Brandied Cherry Fritters.—Prepare as above, using brandied cherries; besprinkle with sugar when the pits have been removed and finish as above. For the sauce, crush four ounces of sour cherries, put this into a copper pan with a pint of red Bordeaux wine, four ounces of sugar, a small piece of cinnamon and the peel of one lemon; leave to cook for a few minutes, then strain the liquid through a sieve and return it to the pan; thicken with a little fecula diluted in a small quantity of cold water and strain this sauce once more through the sieve; now add to it a heavy handful of candied cherries washed in hot water and serve.

← No. 3041 Celeriac, Pear and Quartered Apple Fritters Hot Entremets — Puddings, Fritters & Soufflés No. 3043 Cream of Rice Fritters →

For the Modern Kitchen

A composed dessert fritter from Ranhofer's kitchen: macerated cherries skewered in batches, coated, fried, and served with a wine-thickened cherry sauce. Two things decide whether it works — dry fruit and hot fat.

Drain the cherries hardAfter an hour in sugar and kirsch the fruit weeps freely, and wet cherries will shed their batter in the fat. Drain them, then blot on a towel before rolling in the crumb.
Lady finger dustSimply dried ladyfingers (savoiardi) crushed to fine crumbs. It gives the batter something to grip; plain dry sponge cake or panko-fine cookie crumbs do the same job.
The skewerEight cherries on a silver skewer or a length of straw means one portion fried as a unit. Bamboo skewers work; soak them so they do not scorch, and trim them to fit the pan.
Frying batter No. 137Ranhofer's standard fritter batter is a flour batter slackened with liquid and lightened with whipped egg whites; consult No. 137 for the exact formula. Any yeast-free or beer batter of coating consistency will serve.
Fat temperatureThe book says only "hot frying fat" and gives no number; modern practice for such fritters is roughly 350-375F. Below that the batter drinks oil; above it the crust colors before the interior sets around the fruit.
FeculaFecula in this period generally means potato starch; cornstarch or arrowroot substitute directly. The recipe says only "a little," diluted in cold water; add it sparingly and simmer briefly after adding, or the sauce tastes raw and chalky.
The copper panUse stainless or enameled steel. The wine, cherries and lemon peel are acidic enough to strip an unlined copper surface, which is exactly the pan Ranhofer's brigade would have had tinned.
Vanilla sugarGranulated or superfine sugar stored a week with a split vanilla bean, or sugar blitzed with a piece of bean. Not vanilla extract stirred into sugar, which clumps.
Yield and timingThe sauce is barely cooked -- 'a few minutes' -- so a pint of Bordeaux with four ounces of cherries yields close to a pint of finished sauce, not a reduced glaze. Fry and serve immediately: the crust softens within minutes.

A Little History

The Epicurean (1894) is Charles Ranhofer's record of some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and the fritter chapters show how thoroughly the restaurant worked in the French idiom: beignets built on a single fruit, skewered for portion control, and sent out with a matching sauce. The alternate version using brandied cherries points to a familiar pantry practice of the period, fruit put down in spirits in summer and drawn on through the winter; kirsch, distilled from cherries and their stones, reinforces the fruit's own flavor. The red Bordeaux, cinnamon and lemon peel in the sauce belong to a much older European line of spiced wine fruit sauces, and the candied cherries washed in hot water at the end are rinsed free of their sugar coat before being added as a garnish.