Apple Fritters and Fall Days

My first memories of apple fritters come from a family trip to the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee when I was about seven years old. Up until then, I’d never had them before but it was obvious that my parents were no strangers as they hunted down one particular restaurant just to partake of the treat, served alongside apple butter for dipping.

Apple lovers seem to hold these little hand held delights in such high regard that their eyes glaze over when talking of them. I’ve had more readers than I can count ask me if I had an apple fritter recipe and so today I’m bringing you my very own recipe for them, one that my husband swears could bring about world peace if I played my cards right and kept the sides of apple butter coming.

Speaking of family trips, around these parts fall is the prime time for family outings. We have festivals galore throughout the south and we’ve been getting a head start on this by going on family “adventures” each weekend. We choose one day to get up early and all pile into the car headed off. We don’t tell the kids where we are going and they love the surprise of not finding out until we get there.

We started this a few weeks back and its done wonders for our sanity as well as our sense of togetherness as a family. What started out as something mainly for the kids has become the one thing we all look forward to the most all week long. So far we’ve gone to a historic mill in Belvedere, Tennessee, a day trip to my Papa Reed’s farm, and this past weekend we really surprised them by taking them to Alabama Adventures, an amusement park in Bessemer, Alabama. I have the next three weekend “adventures” planned but I can’t post them here because my Bradybug reads Southern Plate!

We always took little day trips like this when I was a girl, too. If you can, I hope you’ll take some time off this weekend to do something special with your family. It can be as simple as taking lunch out to the back yard for a picnic versus eating at the table, walking around your neighborhood and seeing how many different varieties of leaves you can find, or just going out for a drive one afternoon. In the hectic pace of 2009, its nice to be able to slow down and savor time spent with family like folks did in the old days. I promise you that the simplest of outings will be remembered for lifetimes to come.

How ’bout them fritters?

You’ll need: Milk, brown sugar, apples, eggs, melted margarine, cinnamon, and self rising flour.

Before you mix up your batter, pour about 1/2 inch of oil into a skillet and put it on medium heat on your stove eye so it will be ready to fry in.

In a medium sized bowl, place your flour, sugar, and cinnamon.

Stir that up well, breaking up any sugar lumps as you go.

Now you know if any of those lumps are really stubborn, its bad luck not to eat them.

In fact, I think it should be considered bad luck not to eat a pinch of brown sugar every time you cook with it.

add in your milk and melted margarine

Add in eggs

Stir that up good.

Peel and dice up your apples.

Toss that into your batter.

Until it looks like this.

Now you’re ready to go!

Drop batter by spoonfuls into hot oil.

I use a big spoon that holds about 1/8 of a cup but feel free to make these as large or as small as you like.

After they get browned on one side, turn them over to brown on the other.

Place the on a paper towel lined plate.

If you like, you can roll some in confectioner’s sugar or just sprinkle confectioner’s sugar over them. I put some in a pie plate and roll them a bit but I usually only do this with half of them since we can never decide which we like best!

The cool thing about doing half in sugar and half plain is that you have to eat at least one of each!

See? I work on these angles for y’all!

Here are my little sugared fritters

and get a gander at these unpowdered ones.

See how hard it is to choose?

This recipe makes about two dozen and you’ll notice that several of those didn’t make it to this photograph.

These mysterious hands started snatching them off the platter on the way and I heard choruses of “yummm” as a result.

I did volunteer to take a bite of one so y’all could see all the chunks of apple inside.

These are so moist and delicious!

And then I thought I wouldn’t be doing y’all right unless I showed you what it looked like with a little apple butter slathered on.

~sighs heavily~ Oh the things I do just for you.

~gobbles up the fritter dutifully with a twinkle in her eye~

Yummm!

Southern Plate Apple Fritters

• 2 cups apples, peeled and diced
• 2 cups self rising flour
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 3 Tbsp. melted butter
• 1 tsp cinnamon

Mix flour, sugar, and cinnamon together using a fork to break up any lumps. Add in milk, melted margarine, and eggs. Stir well to combine. Peel and dice apples, add to batter, stirring in. Drop by 1/8 cup fulls into hot oil and turn to allow to brown on both sides. Drain on paper towel lined plate. Dust with confectioner’s sugar, if desired. Serve with apple butter.

To get my recipe for crock pot apple butter, click here.

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Sidenote to anyone who might get a cold this year:

I am just finishing off the first good cold of the season and thought I’d share a little tidbit with you that our family Doctor had us try when our oldest was just a baby. We have one of those great common sense doctors who shares all sorts of little tidbits for care beyond prescriptions and such.

You know how little noses get all raw when a cold comes on? Sore and red, you feel so sorry for the little guys! My doctor said to take some plain old chapstick…

Break off a bit like this and warm it between your fingers. Then smear it around your little ones (or yours!) sore nose and you’ll feel instant relief. This also helps heal the soreness and prevent more from happening. I use it on my kids as soon as they start getting colds and such, it’s a great preventative! Hopefully you won’t need this anytime soon but I thought I’d share this little common sense remedy that has saved a lot of discomfort in my house!

Whatever you are, be a good one.

~Abraham Lincoln. Submit your quote here.

Have a wonderful Wednesday and don’t forget to tune in tonight if you’re in the viewing area. I sure have enjoyed our time together today and hope you’ll drop me a “hidy!” in the comments section below!

Gratefully,

Christy

Me and my younguns at Alabama Adventures.

My Three

Posted by Christy Jordan on Sep 30 2009. Filed under Breads, Breakfast, Dessert. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry