Apple Fritters

Ingredients

• 1/2 lb flour
• 1/2 oz butter
• 1/2 saltspoonful salt
• 2 eggs
• milk
• apples
• hot lard or clarified beef-dripping

Instructions

1. Break the eggs; separate the whites from the yolks, and beat them separately.
2. Put the flour into a basin, stir in the butter, which should be melted to a cream;
3. add the salt, and moisten with sufficient warm milk to make it of a proper consistency, that is to say, a batter that will drop from the spoon.
4. Stir this well, rub down any lumps that may be seen, and add the whites of the eggs, which have been previously well whisked;
5. beat up the batter for a few minutes, and it is ready for use.
6. Now peel and cut the apples into rather thick whole slices, without dividing them, and stamp out the middle of each slice, where the core is, with a cutter.
7. Throw the slices into the batter; have ready a pan of boiling lard or clarified dripping;
8. take out the pieces of apple one by one, put them into the hot lard, and fry a nice brown, turning them--when required.
9. When done, lay them on a piece of blotting-paper before the fire, to absorb the greasy moisture;
10. then dish on a white d'oyley, piled one above the other; strew over them some pounded sugar, and serve very hot.
11. The flavour of the fritters would be very much improved by soaking the pieces of apple in a little wine, mixed with sugar and lemon-juice, for 3 or 4 hours before wanted for table; the batter, also, is better for being mixed some hours before the fritters are made.