a recipe for apple fritters (not the glazed kind)

Before I whipped these guys up—haphazardly, as you will soon learn—my standard vision when I thought of an apple fritter—constantly, as one does—was slightly more glamorous. What I was picturing was the kind of thing you get at a pushcart on the street on your way to work; definitely more of what my dad would buy us at this small bakery (or was it a bodega?) on the way home from school as a treat. Now that I’ve googled it, I’ve found out that that is what we’d actually call a glazed apple fritter, and it requires a few more ingredients than the recipe we’re working with here.

Fritters, a delightful word and the subject of what appears to be much fun in the niche world of personal, historically focused cooking blogs, first brought to my mind complex and hallowed figures such as Laura Ingalls Wilder, who experienced the wild highs and lows of a frontier lifestyle, probably because, when I was a youth, I had a cookbook that purported to replicate the delicious sounding dishes of her youth. But people around the world have been putting various fruits and vegetables into batter and frying them for centuries. This particular recipe was inspired by an old friend of my father’s from the midwest; if I’m remembering correctly, which I very well might not be, he used to make them as a snack. Unlike most recipes I found for glazed apple fritters, they aren’t yeasted, which makes them more of something you’d find at a state fair than anything else, right down to the powdered sugar on top.

There’s a bunch of different recipes for apple desserts in Fave Recipes, but this is the last, and the last in the book. It’s definitely one for when you want to do absolutely no work at all and eat immediately; in my case, after requesting apples be purchased at the grocery store because I thought I might have some vague urge to make a fruit-related dessert, I let them sit for… a couple weeks? Before finally picking up two for this task. (I have no idea what kind apples, do not ask. They were reddish.) We also had some milk that was ready to go bad, and the rest was all pantry staples.

Because of I was uncertain about whether these were the apple fritters of my memory, or some other kind, and there was an absolute lack of clarity about whether they were supposed to be fried or deep fried, and which oil was preferable, I ended up referencing a Jacques Pepin recipe because he’s never steered me wrong before.

Pepin recommends cutting the apples into “sticks,” which I did, but fairly fat ones; this was no julienne, and had he been watching me, he probably would have taken the knife gently out of my hand. (It was post dinner, I was in the middle of a movie, and wanted my sweet treat fast; this is not a dish I would recommend making ahead of time.) I considered doing them as rings, but… why bother. I also chose your standard canola oil for frying, and once the batter was made and the sticks stirred into it, just plopped handfuls of the mixture into the pan. (Do this gingerly.)

Given that they’re basically apples suspended in pancake batter, that’s what they ended up being—apple pancakes. My dining companions deemed them “good” so I guess they were, though I think we can all agree they are not the most beautiful of men. Wait for them to cool more than the 30 seconds I did after taking them out of the oil—like regular pancakes, they cook really fast—or you will end up with hot mouth, a dreaded disease we all know and fear. The contrast between the sweet, crunchy apple inside the hot, soft pancakes, with the smattering of powdered sugar on top, is texturally quite delightful, even if my batch did look a little too rustic.

Lastly, thank you to those of you who have signed up for the paid version of this. For those who haven’t, you can do so immediately below. Updates on how much we’ve raised for Bed-Stuy Strong next time around. And happy Father’s Day.

KATE