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Apple Fritters
Peel and core three good-sized sound apples. Cut each apple in four even slices, lay them on a plate, dredge a tablespoon fine sugar over, pour in two tablespoons rum, then repeatedly turn them in the seasoning and let infuse for half hour, turning them in the rum once in a while. Dip the slices of apples in the frying batter, then gently drop them one by one into boiling fat and fry for eight minutes, frequently turning with a skimmer meanwhile. Take them up, and let drain on a wire grater. Neatly trim them all around. Pour a rum sauce on a hot dish. Arrange the fritters over the sauce, one overlapping another. Sprinkle a little powdered sugar over and serve.
A straightforward macerate-batter-fry sequence, but two instructions in the original will mislead a modern cook: the frying time and the drying surface.
- Fry timeEight minutes is longer than a battered apple ring needs in properly hot fat. At 360-375F the batter colours in three to four minutes, turning once or twice; longer and the coating darkens while the apple softens toward pulp inside.
- Fat temperature"Boiling fat" means fat at the frying point, not literally boiling. Aim for 360-375F and let it recover between batches, or the batter absorbs oil instead of setting.
- "Wire grater"Read this as a wire grate or rack, i.e. a drainer. Drain the fritters on a rack, not on paper, so the undersides stay crisp.
- Cutting the apples"Four even slices" from a cored apple most likely means four rings, which from a good-sized apple come out roughly 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick. Thinner rings turn to pulp; much thicker and the centre stays raw in a short frying time.
- Apple choiceA firm, tart cooking apple holds its shape through maceration and frying. Soft dessert apples break up when you turn them in the rum.
- The frying batterThe recipe assumes the book's standard batter, made separately — a flour, egg and liquid batter of coating consistency. Whatever batter you use should be thick enough to cling to a wet apple ring without sliding off.
- Rum sauceNo quantity is given here either. A simple version is sugar syrup or a thin custard flavoured with rum, poured hot onto the platter so the fritters sit on it rather than in it.
- YieldThree apples give twelve rings, enough for four as a dessert course.
Fritters — batter-dipped fruit dropped into deep fat — are among the oldest sweets in European cookery, and apple was a common filling because apples keep through winter and slice into neat rings once cored. The macerating step here, sugar and spirit left to soak into the fruit for half an hour, is generally traced to French practice, and beignets aux pommes served on a pool of rum sauce is a standard restaurant dessert of the period.