Mini Apple Fritters

As I mentioned in the post from 10Fourteen after trying their BLT fritters I started thinking we should eat more fritters.  Why don't we make fritters?  So I came across a recipe for "Beer Battered Apple Fritters" and I thought ... here we go - perfect opportunity -- fritters and beer.  Perfect.  I was hosting B&B Club so I decided to make a practice run with the fritters to see how they would be.

The recipe is not that complicated -- and me being me -- I had to make a few of my own changes!

Dry Ingredients:
2 cups cake flour
1 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup sugar
1 tblsp baking powder
1 tblsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt

1.  In a large bowl sift together the above ingredients and set aside.

 

In another bowl, whisk together the following:

1 cup beer (the recipe called for "de-alcoholized" beer but that just makes no sense to me)

3 eggs

1/4 cup melted butter

1 tblsp orange zest

3 tblsp orange juice

1 tsp vanilla

 

 

Now you don't need the whole bottle of beer for the batter  ... so go ahead and pour the rest into a glass so that you can keep hydrated while you are doing all that whisking.

 

Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just moistened; fold in 3 finely diced Courtland apples.  Heat oil in a large saucepan (approximately 2" deep); heat over medium-high up to 375*F.  Working in batches, carefully drop heaping tablespoon fulls of batter into hot oil and fry until golden brown - about 2 minutes per side.

 

 

Remove and and place on a paper towel - I have my paper towels on a cooling rack.  Let cool and dust with icing sugar.

 

 

I had some trouble with the "dusting" with icing sugar; even though they were cool, it was melting into the fritters or just not sticking at all (notice the pile of icing sugar on the plate!).  I even added more sugar the next day.  They are very tasty; they are small so its best to dice the apples fairly finely.  The cornmeal adds a nice bite of crunch to the batter and they hold over well to the next day (although lose the crispiness of being fried).

 

Next time I make them, I would put more cinnamon in the batter and maybe even a bit of brown sugar to make them a bit more caramelized.  But they had good flavour and everyone who tried them said they really liked them.  Mine didn't look as nice as the picture in the magazine ... but it was mostly just because of the dusting of the icing sugar.  They are pretty easy and not too time consuming and a nice fall treat.