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Jelly Fritters
Cut out from a loaf of sandwich bread twelve slices quarter of an inch thick, then cut each slice into two even, round pieces, place on a large dish and pour one tablespoon rum and one tablespoon kirsch evenly over them. Spread a teaspoon strawberry or raspberry jelly on each of twelve of them only, and cover with the twelve without jelly. Prepare a frying batter for fritters. Carefully dip each couple into the batter, gently drop in boiling fat and fry for ten minutes, turning once in a while with the skimmer. Lift up, drain on a cloth, neatly trim, arrange on a tin, sprinkle a little powdered sugar over them. Set in a brisk oven for five minutes, remove, dress on a dish with a folded napkin and serve.
A jam sandwich in a fritter batter, closer to a beignet than to French toast. Two instructions in the original will spoil it if followed literally: the frying time and the amount of jelly.
- Fry two to three minutes, not tenTen minutes in fat hot enough to fry batter will scorch the crust and boil the jelly out through the seam. At 365–375F these are done when deep gold, which takes two to three minutes; turn once at the halfway point.
- Seal the seamThe recipe never says to press the rounds together, and that is where it fails. Spread the jelly in a small circle well inside the edge, then press the rim of the two rounds firmly with your thumb so the batter has a closed edge to cling to.
- Use jelly, not jamA firm, well-set fruit jelly holds its shape when heated; loose jam or preserves run. A scant teaspoon per sandwich is right — more will burst the seam.
- The bread"Sandwich bread" here means a close-crumbed white pullman loaf. Day-old bread cut a quarter inch thick holds up to the spirits and the batter; fresh, airy supermarket bread turns to paste. Cut the rounds about 2 inches across with a plain cutter.
- Frying batterThe book assumes you have one on hand. A workable version: 1 cup flour, 1 beaten egg, about 2/3 cup milk or beer and a pinch of salt, whisked to the thickness of heavy cream and rested 20 minutes.
- Kirsch and rumKirsch is unaged cherry brandy, dry rather than sweet, and there is no substitute that tastes the same; a second tablespoon of rum is the reasonable fallback. Two tablespoons over twelve slices is a light sprinkle, not a soak.
- "Brisk oven" and the skimmerA brisk oven means a hot one, somewhere in the region of 400-425F, and the five minutes there is only to set the sugar. A skimmer is a flat perforated spoon — a spider or slotted spoon does the job.
- Yield and servingTwelve fritters, enough for four to six as a dessert. They are best hot, so serve them straight from the oven.
This belongs to a large European family of fried bread desserts — pain perdu, the German and Scandinavian arme Ritter or "poor knights" — in which stale bread is enriched with fat, sugar and spirits and made to pass as pastry. Alexander Filippini, the Delmonico's chef whose name is attached to The International Cook Book (1906), wrote for cooks working from a well-stocked larder, which is why the batter, the frying fat and the oven are all mentioned without being explained.