No. 3048

Souffled Fritters with Lemon Peel or with Roasted Hazel-Nuts

(Beignets Souffles aux Zestes de Citron ou aux Noisettes Grillees).

With Lemon Peel.—Put into a small saucepan two gills of water, one ounce of butter, a pinch of sugar and a grain of salt. Stand the saucepan on the fire and remove it at the first boil, then incorporate four ounces of fine sifted flour, proceeding the same as for cream cake paste (No. 132). When the paste has become smooth beat it for a few moments on the fire to dry, then take it off and let cool partly. Then incorporate three whole eggs and two yolks, putting them in singly, also a little finely chopped lemon peel. The paste must be rather too hard than too soft. Have a deep pan; heat in it moderately some fine frying fat, half clarified butter and half lard; take it from the range to the side of the fire. Take up the paste in small quantities with a teaspoon and let it fall on a floured table; roll into balls and arrange each one as soon as done on a small smooth saucepan cover, then slip them into the hot fat, a few at a time. After the fritters are all in the fat bring the saucepan back to the hot fire so as to gradually increase the heat, being careful to toss the fritters continuously. When they are all of a fine color drain and roll each one in vanilla sugar and dress on a napkin.

With Roasted Hazel-nuts.—A pint of milk, quarter of a pound of butter, five eggs and four ounces of roasted hazel-nuts, pounded in a mortar with a little kirsch. Finish the same as the above.

← No. 3047 Souffled Fritters a la Medicis Hot Entremets — Puddings, Fritters & Soufflés No. 3049 Strawberry Fritters with Macaroons, Garnishe →

For the Modern Kitchen

This is fried choux paste — beignets soufflés — and it behaves like nothing else in the fryer. The whole technique rests on starting the fat cool and letting it climb.

The hinge: rising fat temperatureChoux needs slow heat to expand before the crust sets. Start around 275–300F, add the balls, then move the pan back to full heat so the fat climbs toward 350–375F as the fritters swell, tossing constantly so they colour evenly and turn themselves. Drop them into fat already at 375F and they seal, stay hollow-less and often burst.
Gills and grainsTwo gills is one cup (8 fl oz). "A grain of salt" simply means a pinch. Four ounces of flour is a scant cup, weighed rather than scooped.
"Cream cake paste"Ranhofer's No. 132 is ordinary pâte à choux. Boil the liquid with butter, beat in all the flour at once off the heat, then return the pan to the fire and beat until the paste films the bottom and no longer sticks to the spoon.
Eggs, and "rather too hard"Add the three whole eggs and two yolks one at a time, fully absorbed before the next. The advice to keep the paste stiff is sound: a slack paste cannot be rolled and will spread rather than puff.
The frying fatHalf clarified butter and half lard fries beautifully; because the butter is clarified, most of the milk solids are already gone, though any residue left in it will darken as the heat rises. A neutral oil with a high smoke point, or plain lard, does the same job; use a pan deep enough that the fritters can turn freely.
ShapingThe floured table and the saucepan lid are a way of getting soft paste into hot fat without deflating it. A lightly floured board and a small offset spatula or the lid of any pan work identically; two floured teaspoons are faster still.
Vanilla sugarGranulated sugar stored a week with a split vanilla bean. Fine caster sugar with a scraped bean, pulsed briefly, is the quick substitute. Roll while the fritters are hot so it clings.
The hazelnut version is incompleteRanhofer gives a pint of milk, 1/4 lb butter, five eggs and 4 oz pounded nuts but no flour weight. Scaled from the lemon version, a pint of liquid wants roughly 8 oz of flour; treat that as a reconstruction, not the author's figure, and judge by the paste.
YieldThe recipe gives no yield; the lemon quantity should make roughly two to three dozen walnut-sized fritters. They soften and sink as they cool, so fry and serve in quick succession.

A Little History

Beignets soufflés — sometimes sold in France as pets de nonne, "nun's farts" — are one of the oldest uses of choux paste, which is often said to have been fried long before it was piped and baked. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York, put them in The Epicurean (1894) among a long file of hot entremets, the sweet course that closed a formal service before the ices. The two flavourings are typical of his method of building variations on a single base: candied or fresh lemon zest for the plain version, and for the richer one hazelnuts pounded in a mortar with kirsch, a pairing of nut and cherry spirit that runs through nineteenth-century French pastry. The instruction to move the pan between the hot fire and the cooler side of the range is a coal-stove habit that translates directly to a thermometer and a knob.