Easy Apple Fritters Recipe

First off, we’re going to grab a large pot or Dutch oven and fill it with 1 and 1/2 in of your favorite frying oil. You could use vegetable or peanut; 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.

Prepare the Apples

Now it’s time to grab two large apples; you want about a pound in total and 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.

Now we want to cut the flesh from the core; we’re going to dice this up into smallish, like I think 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.

All right, my apples are all prepped up; I’m going to transfer these to a separate bowl. Now, 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, there we go, and we’re going to set this aside while we make our easy-peasy batter.

Make the Batter

If you can make pancakes you can make apple fritters, and I have to say these are more delicious. Now in a large bowl we’re going to add our dry ingredients, starting off with 1 and 1/2 cups (180 g) of all-purpose flour. To slightly sweeten and soften things up: 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. 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, so it could be apple-pie spice, you could add a pinch of allspice or cardamom—it’s way up to you. Grab a whisk; just whisk this together to combine.

Now grab a medium bowl for your wet mixture. Into my medium bowl I’m adding 3/4 of a cup of whole milk, two large eggs, and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract. We’re going to give this the whisk now—break those eggs up.

All right, now we’re going to pour the wet into the dry, and for the tenderest apple fritters possible don’t over-mix your batter. So 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. Okay, mostly mixed—time to dump in my apples, and now just gently fold them in. Beautiful. The lemon-apple-cinnamon combination is so delicious already; it smells amazing.

Fry the Fritters

As soon as your oil hits 350 °F 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, by the way, burnt on the outside/cooked on the inside or golden and beautiful on the outside/raw and runny and gross on the inside—so keep them fairly small.

You also have to line your baking sheet, so grab a rimmed baking sheet, a cooling rack, and some paper towels. Pop the cooling rack in and now your fritters have a place to sit and drain the oil without steaming, because you want them to be crisp all over. Depending on the size of your bowl you’ll want to be frying four to six at a time. Watch the temperature of your oil; as you add your fritters in they are so cold compared to the hot oil they will bring the temperature right down. Plop that in and give it a smush—I really like to smush them down; it just gives them more surface area, more nooks and crannies, and they get much crisper.

These guys will have to fry for about 2 minutes until they’re golden brown on the bottom. Once that happens, flip them over and fry for another 2 minutes or until they’re golden all over. When you fry things at the perfect temperature you’re going to have a beautiful crisp golden shell on the outside and on the inside everything was steam-heated, so you’ll have the perfect fritter. Okay, these are good, so flip them over. Beautiful. It’s been another 2 minutes; these are golden brown all over, so carefully remove them with your spider or slotted spoon onto your prepared baking sheet, and you’re going to repeat this process for the rest of your batter.

Make the Toppings

Cinnamon Sugar

The easiest one is a tablespoon of cinnamon into one cup of sugar. Just add that in and give it a mix.

Vanilla Glaze

If you’re making a glaze you have a ton of choices: two cups of powdered sugar with 3 to 4 tablespoons of milk or lemon juice (or both) and half a teaspoon of vanilla. A classic vanilla glaze is lovely. 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.

Finish and Serve

Right now you could either roll and cover these in cinnamon sugar, which is delicious and lovely, 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 I 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 5 days or on the counter for 2 days, both in sealed containers. You want to reheat them in the oven—350 °F for 10 minutes—or the air fryer—325 °F for 4 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 little layer of batter that’s crisp and golden on the outside and fluffy and tender on the inside: perfect morning treat. I hope you get a chance to make this recipe.