Easy Apple Fritters Recipe
Apple fritters: the perfect morning treat that comes together faster than donuts and tastes even better!
Hey, I'm John Canel and today on Preppy Kitchen, we're making some Golden Delicious Apple Fritters. So, let's get started!
First off, we're going to grab a large pot or Dutch oven and fill it with 1 and 1/2 inches of your favorite frying oil. You could use vegetable or peanut oil—it's up to you. Pop a thermometer on if you're using one, and we're going to take this to medium-high heat and let it come to 350°F.
Now it's time to grab two large apples—you want about a pound in total. You could use Honeycrisp, Granny Smith, or really any of your favorites. This is a very simple recipe. Give your apples a peel; I want all the texture to be from that crisp, delicious outer shell and not from the peels. By the way, if you like my videos, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. There are two new recipes every single week, and there's always something delicious on the horizon.
Next, we want to cut the flesh from the core and dice this up into smallish, half-inch pieces. Cutting your apples into smaller, uniform pieces ensures they'll all be pleasantly soft and have a lovely texture. If they're giant, you'll have crispy apple fritters on the inside, and that's not the vibe we want. Fritters are a wonderful morning treat because, unlike a traditional doughnut, there is no yeasted rise time needed. They come together so fast, and fresh out of the fryer, they are impossible to beat—so good!
Alright, my apples are all prepped up. I'm going to transfer these to a separate bowl. Personally, I love the combination of apples and lemon, so if you want, you can add about 3 tablespoons or the juice of half of a lemon right into the apples and give them a toss. It'll make them more zingy and really wake things up. Salt and acid are important to desserts and breakfast treats. Give it a toss, and we're going to set this aside while we make our easy-peasy batter.
If you can make pancakes, you can make apple fritters, and I have to say, these are more delicious. In a large bowl, we're going to add our dry ingredients, starting off with 1 and 1/2 cups or 180 grams of all-purpose flour. I'm using a scale because that gives me the best results. To slightly sweeten and soften things up, add 3 tablespoons of granulated sugar. The real sweetness is going to come from the lovely glaze you add at the end or the cinnamon sugar you roll them in—you have a choice. To puff things up, I'm using 2 and 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder. These are best fresh; they're not the best the day after. But if you wanted to prep things out, you could have your wet ingredients in one bowl, your dry ingredients in the other, and then just combine them along with your prepared and lemon juice-coated apples the next day. This way, it would come together so fast, and a lot of us are kind of groggy in the morning and don't want to do a lot.
For some contrast, I'm adding a teaspoon of salt, and of course, apples and cinnamon go hand in hand, so half a teaspoon of cinnamon. If you want, you could use any of your favorite spices—it could be apple pie spice, or you could add a pinch of allspice or cardamom. It's way up to you. Grab a whisk and whisk this together to combine.
Now grab a medium bowl for your wet mixture. By the way, during this time, you should totally keep an eye on your oil and have your nose ready too. You'll smell it once it gets hot, and you might want to take it off heat, turn it down to low, or increase heat depending on your cooktop. We want 350°F by the time this is all together. Into my medium bowl, I'm adding 3/4 of a cup of whole milk. This really is very similar to pancake or waffle batter. Add two large eggs and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract. We're going to give this a whisk now to break those eggs up.
If my kids requested apple fritters, this is what I would have: my chopped apples and wet mixture in the fridge, the dry mixture out and covered, and then the day of, I'm just assembling as the oil heats. Now we're going to pour the wet into the dry, and for the tenderest apple fritters possible, don't overmix your batter. Use a spatula and just fold it together until it's almost combined. I still want to see streaks of flour here and there because we have to mix the apples in too. It smells delicious.
Okay, mostly mixed—it's time to dump in my apples and now just gently fold them in.
For the crispiest apple fritters, don't overmix your batter and keep the oil at the perfect temperature!
We're going to start by giving this mixture a whisk to break those eggs up. If my kids requested apple fritters, I would have my chopped apples and wet mixture in the fridge, while the dry mixture would be out and covered. On the day of preparation, I would simply assemble everything as the oil heats. Now, we're going to pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture. For the tenderest apple fritters possible, don't overmix your batter. Use a spatula and just fold it together until it's almost combined. It's okay to still see streaks of flour here and there because we have to mix the apples in too. The smell is delicious.
Once the batter is mostly mixed, it's time to dump in the apples and gently fold them in. The combination of lemon, apple, and cinnamon is already so delicious and smells amazing. As soon as your oil hits 350 degrees, it's time to portion out your apple fritters. This is easiest with a 1/4 cup scoop, but if you don't have one, just grab two large spoons, eyeball it out, and get them into the oil. You want them to be similarly sized so no one feels cheated and so they all cook evenly. If they're too big, they might end up burnt on the outside and undercooked on the inside, or golden and beautiful on the outside but raw and runny inside. So, keep them fairly small.
Line your baking sheet by grabbing a rimmed baking sheet, a cooling rack, and some paper towels. Pop the cooling rack in so your fritters have a place to sit and drain the oil without steaming, ensuring they remain crisp all over. Depending on the size of your bowl, you'll want to fry four to six fritters at a time. Watch the temperature of your oil as you add your fritters in; they are so cold compared to the hot oil that they will bring the temperature right down. You will need to fiddle with it for a while to make sure it doesn't get too hot or too cold.
Plop the batter in and give it a smush. I really like to smush them down using a spoon or your scoop; it just gives them more surface area, more nooks and crannies, and they get much crisper. If your fritters are irregularly shaped balls, they are going to be kind of doughy in the middle and just not as delicious. It's also more surface area for all the glaze. These fritters will need to fry for about two minutes until they're golden brown on the bottom. Feel free to check them with your spider, which you'll be using to take things out. Once that happens, flip them over and fry for another two minutes or until they're golden all over. When you fry things at the perfect temperature, you'll have a beautiful crisp golden shell on the outside and a perfectly steamed inside.
If your oil is too cold, it will penetrate into the fritter, making them soggy and gross. This can also happen if they're overcrowded in the oil, so just keep an eye on that temperature. Once they are golden brown all over, carefully remove them with your spider or slotted spoon onto your prepared baking sheet and repeat this process for the rest of your batter.
While those are frying, let's make our delicious toppings. The easiest one is a tablespoon of cinnamon into one cup of sugar; just add that in and give it a mix. If you're making a glaze, you have a ton of choices: two cups of powdered sugar with three to four tablespoons of milk or lemon juice, or both, and half a teaspoon of vanilla. A classic vanilla glaze is lovely. If I was making these for the kids, I would totally have a lemon glaze because I love everything lemon. Give this a mix, and you're really just going to add milk until you have the desired consistency. You might want it really runny and completely covered or thicker for a nice drizzle; it's totally up to you.
I'm so happy with the way these look. This is how a fritter should be: thin, not a big glob, with tons of little nooks and crannies and tendrils that are crispy fried and delicious. Right now, you could either roll and cover these in cinnamon sugar, which is delicious and lovely just like that, or you could dip or drizzle your fritters in glaze. It's totally up to you. I like to see the golden skin of the fritters and don't want to cover them completely in glaze. This batch is going to be gone in a flash; my boys will eat these up. However, they keep in the fridge for five days or on the counter for two days, both in sealed containers. To reheat them, use the oven at 350 degrees for 10 minutes or the air fryer at 325 degrees for four minutes. Once coated, they are ready to enjoy.
Look at those apples, so lovely. This is a clump of apples held together by a thin layer of batter that's crisp and golden on the outside and fluffy and tender on the inside. A perfect morning treat. I hope you get a chance to make this recipe. If you like this video, hit the Subscribe button and check out my breakfast treat playlist.