Fritter Batter
One pint of milk, three eggs, a little salt, one pint of flour. It can be made with or without a teaspoonful of baking powder. Beat the eggs well; add part of the milk and salt, then the flour and milk alternately, beating it all quickly, and cooking it immediately, dropping it by the spoonful into boiling hot lard.
A plain all-purpose batter of the sort that once did duty for everything from apple rings to salt cod. The proportions are equal volumes of milk and flour, which gives a thin, pourable batter rather than a stiff coating.
- The fat temperature is the whole recipe"Boiling hot lard" gives no number; modern practice for dropped fritters is somewhere around 360-375F. Below that the batter drinks fat and stays pale; much above it and the outside colours before the centre sets. A thermometer removes the guesswork, and the fat needs a minute to recover between batches.
- A pint of flour is not a poundMeasured by volume, a pint of flour is roughly 2 cups, or about 8-9 oz depending on how it is scooped. If the batter seems thin, add flour a spoonful at a time rather than starting over.
- Baking powder, optional as statedWithout it you get a dense, custardy fritter with a crisp shell; with it, a puffier, more open crumb. The recipe's one teaspoon is the whole allowance for this quantity.
- "Cooking it immediately" is not fillerOnce mixed, any leavening starts working at once, and the recipe's own instruction is to beat quickly and cook immediately. Mix it beside the pan rather than ahead of time.
- Lard and its substitutesLard fries at a high smoke point and gives a clean flavour; refined vegetable shortening or a neutral high-heat oil behaves much the same. Butter will burn well before frying temperature.
- Drop fritters versus a coatingAs written this is dropped by the spoonful. The same batter thinned slightly with milk will coat apple slices, banana, oysters or cooked corn; thickened with a little extra flour it holds chopped fruit or vegetables suspended in it.
- YieldA pint of milk and a pint of flour make a generous quantity, several dozen spoonful-sized fritters. Halve it for four people unless you intend leftovers, which do not keep well.
- Sweet or savouryThere is no sugar in the batter. Sweetness comes from the filling, or from sugar and a sauce added after frying.
Fritter batter of this kind served as an all-purpose formula, adapted to whatever needed frying, sweet or savoury. The word comes through Middle English fritour from Latin frictura, a frying, and battered fried morsels appear in English manuscript cookery from the medieval period onward. The parenthetical about baking powder places the recipe after chemical leavening had become a kitchen staple, with the older reliance on well-beaten eggs alone for lift still an option. The choice of lard reflects a kitchen where pork fat was cheap and often rendered at home; commercial vegetable shortening for deep frying came later.