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Apple Fritters (Beat well the yolks of two)
Beat well the yolks of two eggs, add half pint of sweet milk, a pinch of salt and two cupfuls of sifted flour. Beat until smooth and light, stir in a pint of peeled and sliced apples and the whites of the eggs beaten stiff. Drop a spoonful at a time in boiling lard and take up with skimmer.. Serve at once with syrup.
A plain drop fritter, thick enough to hold sliced apple in suspension. Two details carry it: the whites folded in last, and fat held at a steady temperature.
- "Boiling lard"Lard does not boil; the phrase means hot enough to bubble vigorously when batter hits it. Work at 365-375F. Below that the fritters soak; above it the outside colors before the apple softens.
- Half pint of milkOne cup. "Sweet milk" simply means fresh whole milk, specified because sour milk was the other thing in the pantry and behaves differently with leavening.
- A pint of applesA pint is a volume of sliced fruit, not a weight: about 2 medium apples, peeled, cored and cut thin. Firm tart varieties hold their shape; a soft apple collapses into the batter.
- No leaveningThere is no baking powder here. The lift comes entirely from the stiffly beaten whites, so fold them in at the very end and fry promptly, before they deflate.
- Batter consistencyTwo cups flour to one cup milk and two yolks gives a very stiff batter, close to a drop-biscuit dough. That is intended, so the spoonfuls hold together in the fat rather than spreading.
- SkimmerA flat perforated skimming spoon, the period equivalent of a spider or slotted spoon. Drain the fritters on paper or a rack for a moment before serving.
- SyrupThe recipe does not say which; maple or a plain boiled sugar syrup, warmed, would suit. Fritters toughen as they cool, which is why the original insists on serving at once.
- YieldRoughly 16 to 20 fritters, enough for four to six as a dessert or a breakfast side. Fry in batches of five or six so the fat temperature does not drop.
Fritters in this style are often said to have been among the most common uses for apples in nineteenth and early twentieth century American kitchens, where a barrel of apples in the cellar had to be worked through before it spoiled. The word comes through Middle English from Old French friture, from the Latin for frying, and it once covered almost anything bound in batter and dropped in fat. The heavy egg-and-flour batter with beaten whites folded in reflects a period before chemical leaveners were universal in home baking; cooks got their lightness from arm work. Lard was the ordinary frying fat of the era, cheap and rendered at home or bought by the pail, and it gives a cleaner flavor at these temperatures than butter, which would burn.