Vegan Apple Fritters
Finally, a vegan recipe to get excited about!
My oldest daughter has a severe dairy allergy, so I’m always looking for new dairy free friendly foods to make at home so she doesn’t feel left out - this means a lot of things we would typically order in, or pick up, like Pizza, cookies, cakes - mainly baked products - have to be made at home with clever vegan work arounds. This particular one was fairly easy, fried dough/donuts don’t usually have a lot of dairy, there is no butter, and you can just replace the milk components in the glaze and recipe with soy milk/ oat milk/ almond milk/ any plant based milk. I’m starting to bake more- I don’t know why I always avoid it - my first ever job at age 16 was in the bakery of my small town grocery store- Highland Park Market- I probably don’t bake often because I enjoy cooking freestyle, testing flavors and ratios at will when baking requires precision and measuring. But I’m starting to have fun with learning about different yeast proofing methods, learning about different flours, and slightly modifying recipes I find to try and improve on them or in this case, make them dairy free so my daughter can enjoy them. This is what I got for Apple Fritters:
Ingredients:
Batter:
1.5 cups AP flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt,
1 tsp cinnamon
1tsp apple pie spice
1/2 cup cinnamon applesauce
1/2 cup soy milk
3 small apples (diced)
To make the glaze, in a separate bowl, mix 2 cups icing sugar with 1/3 cup soy milk and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract.
You will also need about 24oz of vegetable or some neutral frying oil.
Method:
To make the batter, combine the 1.5 cups flour, 1/4 cup granulated sugar, 2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, 1 tsp cinnamon and 1tsp apple pie spice with 1/2 cup cinnamon applesauce and 1/2 cup soy milk- then fold in 3 small diced apples.
In a large skillet, fry pan, or pot, heat 3in of vegetable oil to 360° - it is important to keep an eye on this temp with a thermometer and adjust as needed, as to not burn the fritters. When the oil at temp spoon in apple batter and spread flat as it hits the oil, 3 min or until golden, flip and fry for 2 more min, remove to baking rack. You can also flour a surface and try to make flat dough cakes and lower them into the oil with a spatula, however the batter is fairly wet and I find it easier to just scrape off a large spoon/spatula into the oil using a knife or something with a flat edge.
Cool and glaze
After frying for roughly 5 min in the oil, remover the fritters and let cool on a baking rack, allowing any excess oil to drip off. Once the fritters are cool enough to handle, simply dip them in the glaze, and let sit on the rack again to let the glaze high. You can repeat this process a second time to make sure they get coated well.
Enjoy!
This recipe yields 6 large apple fritters. These fritters are best fresh but will maintain their crispy crunchy exterior and light doughy interior for several hours if left uncovered. Once they are covered they will lose their crispy outer coating, but not to worry, they won’t last long enough to need to save any!