I first tasted an apple fritter as a young man in my hometown of Decatur, Illinois, at the Van Zetti Bakery. It’s been my favorite donut-adjacent food for fifty years since.

Recently, we ran across Kent Rollins’ YouTube channel, and I was delighted to find that he has a recipe. Despite my trepidation toward deep frying, I decided to try it out. We picked up a bag of Granny Smith apples and a bottle of Fireball Whiskey on Saturday, and made these on Sunday Morning.

The first step was to dice the apples and sauté them in a little butter. Once they start to get soft and a little golden, I added a couple tablespoons of Turbinado Sugar and a tablespoon of dark brown. Then came a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, and finally a good splash of Fireball to deglaze the iron skillet. This all got set aside to cool while making the batter.

I beat two medium eggs well to start the batter, incorporating 3/4 cup of sugar and a tablespoon of melted butter. The dry mixture (1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt and a little grated nutmeg) went in next, along with 3/4 cup of Ginger Ale, as we didn’t have Mountain Dew on hand. By then the apples were cool enough to add, and the dough was ready for frying.

I used a little over an inch of vegetable oil in the bottom of a Dutch Over for frying, dropping in four large spoonfuls at a time once the oil was hot. The recipe made about a dozen and a half fritters, and they were just the right size for an individual serving – although everyone ate more than one.

The glaze was a cup of powdered sugar and a few teaspoons of Fireball, with a little more of the Ginger Ale to get the right consistency.

You can watch the whole process on Kent’s YouTube video. The recipe is here.

These were as delicious as I had imagined and hoped, and the frying was a lot less daunting and messy than I had feared. It’s the cowboy way. 🙂