- Hey, you're watching Preppy Kitchen where I, John Kanell,
teach you how to make delicious home-cooked dishes
to share with your family and friends.
Today we're making something
that's so easy. (mellow music)
I know a lot of you are really bored
with your breakfast offerings,
and you wanna treat yourself every once in a while.
Well, why not an apple fritter?
It's the donut that you don't have
to have all the yeast and leavening for.
It fries up in a minute,
and you will be in heaven.
Let's get started.
If you're wondering like, "What is this kitchen?"
This doesn't look like my new kitchen situation.
The renovations are dragging on a bit,
so we moved into a rental house,
and in the meantime, we're gonna prep our apples.
We have to give 'em a peel,
and just a little chop.
Got a mix of a couple Gala apples and a Granny Smith.
You don't have to be too picky,
just choose tasty apples.
I think the key to a great fritter is having a lot
of delicious apples held together
with a little bit of batter.
It makes a big difference.
You don't want to have just donut; it's an apple fritter.
The other thing is, of course, frying it the right way.
It has to be in oil, of course.
But you really wanna take it dark.
I think my perfect fritter is really dark
'cause that's when it gets real crispy.
Normally, we have a really balanced breakfast.
(bright music) Actually pretty Spartan
but you can't live that life every day,
so on the weekends I like to have either some waffles,
pancakes, or on an extra indulgent day, an apple fritter.
So we'll be enjoying these very shortly.
It'll be delicious.
And the kids will get just a little piece
at the end of breakfast.
I learned having kids that the key to treating them is
to let them have something at the end of the experience
so they're not brain locked on waffles or whatever.
More waffle, more waffles. (snickers)
It's not a fun time at the restaurant.
I'm just chopping this willy-nilly.
It doesn't really matter if the pieces are irregular,
because some will be softer
and some will have a bit more bite to them.
So when I was growing, we would get to go to the donut shop
once a week for a a special treat,
and I would always get an apple fritter,
but I also liked the crullers,
which are my adult favorite donut.
There's one place locally
that has the best cruller in the world,
although I grew up on the west coast,
and I'm hearing, they are like, "What do you want?
"A cruller?"
And I was like, "Yeah, that one over there."
And they were like, "Oh, you mean a cruller."
I was like, "Oh, is that called a cruller?
"I don't know."
You can let me know in the comments
if you say cruller or cruller,
or if you have no idea what I'm talking about. (snickers)
I called my mom after this incident,
and she said it was a cruller
and she's never heard of a cruller before,
but she's from Mexico and has a slight accent
if you've seen some of her videos
that she is in with me.
Okay, I'm just getting all the apple
off this core because (knife scraping)
I don't want to waste it.
When I eat an apple, it's like a squirrel has gotten to it.
There's just the seeds hanging on the end.
This is gonna go into our bowl now.
(jubilant music)
And I'm also gonna squeeze a little bit
of lemon juice on here.
I am part Greek,
so lemon has to be in every single thing.
I like the way it wakes the apple up.
The Granny Smith is actually pretty tart,
so it doesn't technically need it,
but the lemon juice isn't hurting it.
This can get set aside,
and now it's on to the dry ingredients.
(bowl scraping)
We're adding about a quart of vegetable oil
into a Dutch oven over medium-high heat.
It's gonna be warming up
while we make our quick batter.
You know the drill.
These little puppies are getting deep fried.
For the dry mixture, we're adding in 180 grams,
or 1 1/2 cups, of all purpose flour.
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon.
One teaspoon of salt.
2 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder.
(metal clinking) Tap, tap, tap.
Three tablespoons of sugar.
Give it a sift.
Sifting is kind of optional,
but I think it helps things along.
It's never bad to sift.
You can't go wrong.
We're gonna whisk it up
(whisk scraping) just a little bit,
and then set it aside.
Setting it aside carefully on a smaller island
at the rental house. (laughs)
Pulling that back because I forgot the nutmeg.
'Cause there was a bit of nutmeg in here.
It's optional, but I love nutmeg and apple,
and if you can ever grate fresh nutmeg,
that is the way to go.
It is totally different than regular nutmeg
or the pre-made, pre-ground one.
(tranquil music) It's much more aromatic.
Okay, pinch of nutmeg.
Now I'm setting things aside carefully,
and now onto the wet ingredients.
For the wet ingredients,
we're adding in 2/3 of a cup of milk.
Mm, delicious.
Two eggs, room temperature, please.
And then, two teaspoons of vanilla, okay.
Give this a whisk. (whisk clinking)
This bowl should've been bigger.
Okay, now we're ready to assemble that batter.
So this is so easy.
All we have to do is add the wet mixture to the dry.
We're gonna fold it together.
Then as we get closer to it all being incorporated,
see it turns into a dough.
Oh that nutmeg smells so good.
We're gonna dump the apples in.
So doesn't even have to be fully mixed together,
because you're gonna fold the apples
and that little bit of lemon juice in.
And what do we have here?
This looks to me like a fritter.
Okay, at this point too,
I'm gonna stir in that melted butter.
Well, well, well, well.
It makes a difference.
So you can see right here,
the mixture is really a lot of apples held together
with a little bit of batter.
You don't want too much batter,
and that is my firm opinion on apple fritters.
Okay, that's good. (mixture squelching)
Now we are ready to go to our hot oil,
which should be about 360, so let's go check.
Okay, so my oil hit 360. (oil sizzling)
It's time to add in your fritters.
I like to do three or four at a time.
Now, it's great if you have a spider.
I don't, so I'm using the slotted spoon situation.
We're gonna let them get nice and golden brown
and then flip them over so they can cook on both sides.
So keep a careful eye out
because it's kinda of like nothing happens,
and then it happens.
Now, for fritters, it's kind of interesting
because you'd think golden brown, extra beautiful,
but I like them burnt.
The more burnt they are, the more crispy they are,
and as they release their steam when they're cooling,
they kind of soften up a bit.
So I kind of err on the side of darker.
Just transfer them onto some paper towels
till they kind of cool down
and soak up some of the excess oil
because when you blot fried thing off with paper towels,
they become healthy. (snickers)
Then let's keep that train moving.
Sometimes I like to beat them up little bit,
right after they're in the oil,
so they kind of spread out more.
The thing that I don't like with fritters is
when they're kind of too blobby.
So feel free to give them a little flatten out.
So these guys can get rolled in cinnamon sugar,
which is really easy and delicious,
but I like a glaze,
and mine will have some lemon juice.
It's so easy to make.
One cup of powdered sugar.
And we're gonna add in just enough lemon juice
to turn it into a glaze.
I love the contrast of the lemon.
Really takes away some of the sweetness
of that pure sugar mound.
And you can, of course, use a strainer.
I'm using my fingers
because I can't find the strainer at the rental house.
I know there is one.
I don't know where anything is.
It's crazy. (calming music)
You can also use water, milk.
You can add in vanilla if you want.
Just really any liquid.
Okay, now that we're here, we're gonna mix mix.
Making a glaze is always kind of hilarious
because it starts out so gunky like, "What is this?"
But then as you mix, it just magically turns smooth.
Gonna add in some more lemon juice
because it's not magically turning smooth.
(whisk clattering) (upbeat music)
Here we go.
And you can see we're getting
into a more drippy, glazey consistency.
There we go.
I want a nice drizzle on top of these,
and that's all I needed.
Just a couple of extra drops.
Okay, time to drizzle some on.
You could also dip them in glaze,
but I like, whoa. (laughing)
I just doused them in glaze.
Oh my gosh, what happened?
Drizzle, drizzle, drizzle, drizzle, drizzle, drizzle,
drizzle, drizzle, there we go, that's better.
That was extreme bites of sugar there.
Now that's what I call a balanced breakfast.
If you love apples,
you've got to check out my apple pie recipe.
It is the perfect apple pie,
and you will love it.
In the meantime, you know that the cook gets the first bite.
(crunching)
That is good.
Oh my God.
Hello.
Be still my heart, I can't take it anymore.
The apples are so juicy in there and sweet,
and just enough batter to cover it all.
Zing of a lemon.
Amazing.
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and I'll see you in the next video.