Last week marked the beginning of my favorite time of the year: autumn. There’s just something about the season’s warm fullness, and I want to take in every essence of it. It signifies a time of change, the slight bracing chill in the air (albeit a belated one in Florida), a crisp smell, and of course, the golden and hearty food.
This year, the beginning of fall turned Gainesville into Rainesville, and I spent last week curled up on the couch with my Law of Mass Communications book listening to the rain drumming on the roof. With the presence of fall and whispering winds outside, I couldn’t help but crave a comfortingly cozy autumn recipe. I received an email from Pinterest earlier in the week titled “Falling for Fall,” and thinking with my taste buds, I hunted that email down only to find links to hundreds of fall food boards. After a much longer study break than I anticipated, I found a recipe that satisfied my desire for something with sweet cinnamon: apple fritters.
I’m a huge fan of Peach Valley (and if you don’t know what that is, you need to go) and its apple fritters, so I was beyond excited when I found a way to make a version at home. There are quite a few ingredients, but most of them are baking essentials, so if you get them once, you’ll use them often:
- 1 cup of flour
- 1/3 cup of sugar
- 1 tsp. of baking powder
- 2 tsp. of cinnamon
- ¼ tsp. of nutmeg
- dash of salt
- 1 T. of melted butter
- 1/3 cup of milk
- 1 egg
- 1-1 ½ cups of chopped apple
- oil
To make these little balls of delight, follow these steps:
- Mix all of the dry ingredients together followed by the wet ingredients. Wait to put in the apple. Mix until it’s all together, but don’t make the batter too thin.
- Carefully fold in the apple pieces.
- Prepare a glaze for the fritters by combining a cup of powdered sugar with one tablespoon of milk. Place to the side.
- Pour oil into a frying pan on low-medium – medium heat.
- Using a cookie scooper or spoon, place a few balls of dough onto the pan. Carefully watch them, so they don’t burn on the side; they brown fast. Flip them over within 30-60 seconds.
- Once done in the pan, dip the fritters into the glaze and put on a plate to serve.
As you can see, mine came out more like apple fritter blobs than apple fritter balls. It can be a little hard to keep them in a ball shape when you’re using a frying pan instead of a fryer. Fortunately, the shape doesn’t affect the taste, and the fritters were tastefully warm and sweet, making them the perfect toast to the autumn season.
Take that, Peach Valley.