Late last week, my dear fb friend Modern Mrs. Cleaver (yes, I think she probably does wear pearls when she makes dinner) mentioned that she was craving apple fritters. And for some reason, I decided that I would make some “for her.” Which means that I would make some for myself and post a lovely picture on her page. I am a helper.
The strange thing is that I had never before made apple fritters. I didn’t even like the ones I’d had at the donut shops either. But on this Particular Day, they sounded Dreamy, and I was feeling all Altruistic, so I went forth to find a Likely recipe.
You don’t just want these. You need these…
Friends, what I found was just a mess. Seems that folks in the UK make one kind of apple fritter and folks in the US make another kind, and each Camp feels rather Proprietary about its own version. In the UK, rings or chunks of apples get dunked in a batter, deep fried and then served alongside fish and chips or What Not as a Side Dish. In the US, it is more likely that chopped up bits of apple get mixed up in a batter and then fried.
And then there’s the batter. I saw everything from a beer batter to almost a pancake batter to a yeast-based batter. So, since I was making these for MMC, I asked her what kind she wanted. She responded: “yeastie and chopped. It changes daily.” Which just goes to show that even among the one person surveyed, there is not much Brand Loyalty when it comes to fritters.
Slack dough brimming with apples. I bet there’s a 1:1 ratio of dough to apples!
Still, since on that Particular Day, MMC had a hankering for yeasted dough with chopped apples, I decided to Make That Happen.
Mmmm…. Fresh from the fryer…
The recipe I Settled Upon to Tinker with is this one from cdkitchen. I also saw the same recipe over on SeriousEats. I have no idea where it actually originated, though.
Anyhow, here’s what I did to what they did.
- 3 large-ish apples, peeled and chopped into about ½” dice
- 1 tablespoon sugar (I used Sugar in the Raw, or you can use maple syrup or honey)
- 1 tablespoon butter
- salt, to taste
- ½ teaspoon Baker’s Brew Coffee Spice (or use apple pie spice or just cinnamon)
- a wee splash apple cider vinegar (or a squirt of lemon juice would work)
- a couple of splashes of apple cider or apple juice
- 1¼ teaspoons active dry yeast
- ⅓ cup whole milk, warm
- 2 tablespoons apple juice or apple cider, warm
- 7.5 oz all purpose flour
- 2 large egg yolks
- 3 tablespoons sugar (I used Sugar in the Raw)
- 1 oz melted butter
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon Baker’s Brew Coffee Spice
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 cups 10x sugar
- ½ teaspoon Baker’s Brew Coffee Spice
- heavy pinch of fine sea salt
- 2″ peanut oil in a large Dutch oven
- Cook the apples in the sugar, butter, salt and spice until they turn a bit golden brown.
- In the meantime, reduce the cider and cider vinegar by half.
- When the apples are starting to get some color, add the reduced liquids and cook together until almost dry. If the apples are getting too much color before the liquid reduces sufficiently, simple drain them in a colander and call them done.
- Set aside.
- This dough uses the straight dough method, so just put all the ingredients in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the dough hook and turn it on medium-low speed.
- Once the dough has come together, turn the speed up just a bit and let the mixer knead the dough for about 5 minutes. The dough will be extremely soft–sort of on the edge of being a batter.
- Spray the top of the dough very well with pan spray and then cover and let rise in a warm place for about 2 hours. It does not need to double, and it might not because of all the yolks and butter.
- Once the dough has risen, spray your hands well with pan spray (or rub them with coconut oil or something) and press the gases out of the dough.
- Press the dough up the sides of the pan a bit and then put about ⅓ of the apple mixture in the center.
- Fold all the sides in and press down again. Pan spray as necessary to keep things from sticking.
- Press the dough down again and up the sides of the bowl, and add another third of the apples.
- Fold in and then add the last third of the apple in the same way. Press down and fold over a couple of more times.
- There will be a lot of apples, so if some poke out, don’t worry. Just keep going.
- Cover and let rest for about 20 minutes.
- Place the sugar, salt and baking spice in a gallon-sized zip top bag. Shake to distribute the spices and salt. Taste and add a bit more seasoning if necessary.
- Heat the oil to 350F.
- Have a cooling rack set over several layers of paper towels ready.
- When the oil has reached 350F, scoop the batter using a 1.5 ounce disher (about 3 tablespoons). Fry no more than four at a time. Total fry time will be about 5 minutes, until the fritters are a lovely deep golden brown.
- Place the first four on the draining rack.
- When the oil is back to temperature, fry four more.
- While those four are frying, place the first four in the gallon bag and shake so the fritters are completely covered with the spiced powdered sugar.
- Continue frying and “sugaring” until all the fritters are done.
- Dig right in.
- They are lovely with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, too.
Incidentally, it’s also fantastic in savory Mexican-inspired food, so if you can, I highly recommend you Pick Some Up.
If you don’t have any, don’t want to order it or just don’t like to be told what to do, go ahead and use cinnamon or apple pie spice.
Use whatever apples you have on hand. I used 1 Granny Smith and 2 Golden Delicious because they were staring at me from my counter.
This amount of dough/apples yielded 16 fritters. They are best eaten immediately, so invite some friends. They will reheat just fine in the toaster oven or oven–I don’t recommend using the microwave)–but I would try to eat them within just a few hours of making them.
If you are interested in trying the Baker’s Brew Coffee Spice, you can get it here. I am in no way affiliated with Savory Spice Shop. They didn’t ask me to write this post, and the only compensation I got was being able to eat fritters. I got the spice as a Christmas present from a dear friend and have fallen in love with it!
So, dear readers and dear Modern Mrs. Cleaver, I hope you love these fritters.
Here’re a couple of questions for you: Have you ever had an apple fritter? What is your favorite kind?
Please weigh in in the comments. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Thanks for reading and have a lovely day.
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