Recipe: Apple Fritters

Saturday was a weird day for me. I wasn't sure how to feel. It was my last day working at Jezebel Gourmet Bistro because we went out of business. I was happy and a little sad. Mostly happy because that meant I would have a little more free time.

Anyways, when I got to Noonan's, I saw that we had a big box of apples in the cooler so the gears started turning. I wanted to make apple fritters.

Homemade.
My own recipe.

They turned out really well! So I decided to share them with you!

Ingredients

For the apples:

5 apples. Peeled, cored, and sliced

1 cup of sugar

¼ stick of butter

1-2 shots of triple sec

For the batter:

3 ½ cups flour

3 cups of milk (may take a little more than 3 cups)

1 ½ teas. baking powder

½ cup sugar

1 orange, zest and ½ juice

You will also need oil for frying at 350 degrees F. 

First I caramelized the apples. I melted the butter in a sauté pan and once that was melted I added the apples and sugar. I mixed them up a bit. Stirring and flipping them every five minutes or so. You want to keep them over about a medium flame. Once they start browning, I added the triple sec. If you like an orangey flavor, add 2 shots. If not, just add one. Be careful when you add it. You don’t want to start a fire. (If you’re nuts, maybe you do. I don’t judge.) When your apples are a nice caramel color, take them off the heat and let them sit while you make your batter.

Start with your flour then whisk in your milk. Add your baking powder and sugar. Once that is all whisked up, it should look a little thicker than pancake batter. I added the zest of one whole orange and then cut it in half and used one half for the juice. I then blended up my apples in the food processor until they were smaller chunks. I added that to the batter and whisked it all together. By this time, you should be able to smell the batter. I then used a small ice cream scooper and dropped some of the batter into the deep fryer. I let them cook until they were golden brown. When they came out, I gave them a good sprinkling of powdered sugar and added a scoop of ice cream to the middle. 

My own critique:

I have made conch fritters in the past so I tried to follow the basics of what I could remember. I know you don't want a runny batter but you don't want it to be so thick that you can shape it or roll it. After they were fried, the inside was moist and not fluffy. It wasn't undercooked, it just wasn't the consistency of say, a doughnut. I read this article that I found online about the consistency of fritters, click here for fritter batter consistency, and I'm not sure if I used too much baking powder, or not enough. 

They tasted a little orangey. I usually don't like orange flavored things but this was a kind of comforting orange flavor. If you don't like orange-tasting things, don't add all of the juice from the orange. 

Also, this makes a pretty big batch so if you're only making some for your family, maybe cut down the ingredients. 

Everyone that tried them, liked them a lot. We weren't very busy Saturday night but one table ordered them and loved them. The other table said that the other people made them look so good, that they wanted to try them too! One of the tables asked what was in them because they couldn't quite put their finger on it. When people ask questions, it usually means that they are food lovers. Or at least that is what I think. 

If you try this recipe, I'd love for you to let me know if you like them or not! If you know how I could fix the batter, I'd like to hear about that too! I'm in it to learn and gain as much as I can from my experiences. Happy eating!