Frittering Away

From Devil and Egg

Sunday morning I went off-script with breakfast and decided to make something other than pancakes. Since we are down to our last few orchard-apples (I used jonagold and honeycrisp) I wanted to use them in the most delicious way possible, and that’s when I remembered the apple fritter recipe in my new favorite cookbook, The Craft of Baking.

An apple fritter is basically pieces of apple (this recipe recommends cutting the apple in ring shapes, so they resemble donuts, but you can do thin wedges as well, and at the end of the frying I started throwing random apple pieces into the batter, it tastes good no matter what the shape that are dipped in batter and fried. Before you dip the apples in batter though, you sprinkle them with a mixture of sugar and cinnamon and then let them sit a bit to soak up the flavor–this is something I never did before but I thought it made for an even more apple-pie like filling.
Before peeling, coring, and slicing the apples though, you make the batter, which consists of flour, sugar, and cinnamon, mixed with egg yolks, beer (I used Brooklyn Lager), and vanilla. The mixture should sit for 30 minutes (which is when you’ll prepare your apple), and then right before frying, you beat one egg white into soft peaks and then fold the whites gently into the batter (a technique which works wonderfully with pancake batter as well).

Once your apple pieces have sat with their sprinkle of sugar, and the batter has had time to rest and then incorporate the egg whites, it’s time to fry.

Into a Creuset pot (I think you can use any heavy duty shallow pot but I think the cast iron variety heats quickly and more evenly) I added peanut oil about two inches high, and put the heat on medium high (your oil is ready when it it reached 350 on a thermometer and has an active bubble when you put the apples in). I then made stations: apples and batter to the left of the pot, and to the right, paper towels for placing the finished fritters right from the pot, and next to that another sugar/cinnamon/dash of salt station for coating the warm fritters–this job fell to Belle.
I made two apple slices at a time: dipped them in the batter, making sure they were evenly coated, put them carefully in the hot oil, I used bamboo kebab sticks I had handy (you’d be surprised how handy bamboo kebab sticks are to have around) to flip them once they turned golden on the bottom (about 2-3 minutes a side) and then placed them on the paper towel .

Belle dusted and then served— we were basically frying and eating simultaneously because fritters, like most fried delicacies, should be consumed warm and immediately.
Belle and Conor LOVED them--a) because they are “O” shaped and obviously look like donuts:
And b) they were melty apple goodness, coated with a crispy shell, and dusted with sugar and cinnamon. How can you go wrong?

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