Apfelküchle

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Apple corer
• •Wide heavy pot or deep pan
• •Frying thermometer
• •Wire rack
• •Whisk

Instructions

1. 1

   Mix the batter

   Whisk the flour, 1 tablespoon sugar, and salt in a bowl, then beat in the egg yolks, milk, sparkling water, and 1 teaspoon oil or melted butter until smooth. Let the batter rest 15 minutes, because dry flour needs time to drink the liquid; skip that and the coating fries up floury instead of tender.

   Use sparkling water cold from the bottle. The bubbles loosen the batter just enough, and a loose batter coats the apple in a thin shell instead of a heavy jacket.
2. 2

   Make vanilla sauce

   Warm 250ml milk with the scraped vanilla pod and seeds, or vanilla sugar, until it smells clearly of vanilla. Whisk the 2 egg yolks, 30g sugar, and cornflour in a small bowl, pour in the hot milk slowly while whisking, then return it to the pot and stir over low heat until it coats a spoon. Keep it below a boil, because egg yolk thickens gently and turns grainy when bullied. Nicht aus dem Glas.

3. 3

   Cut the apples

   Core the apples and slice them into rings about 1cm thick, then brush or toss them with lemon juice. Pat them dry before battering. The lemon keeps the cut apple bright, and the drying matters because wet fruit thins the batter at the surface and leaves bare spots in the pan.

4. 4

   Fold and heat

   Beat the egg whites to soft peaks and fold them through the rested batter just before frying, so the air is still there when the rings hit the oil. Heat the frying oil in a wide, heavy pot to 175C. Use a thermometer if you've got one; guessing with hot fat is how dinner gets interesting for the wrong reason.

5. 5

   Fry the rings

   Dip each apple ring into the batter, let the excess drip back into the bowl, and lower it into the oil without crowding the pot. Fry 2 to 3 minutes per side, turning once, until the batter is golden and crisp at the edges and the apple yields when pressed with tongs. Keep the oil steady between batches, because cool fat makes greasy Apfelküchle and hot fat leaves the apple raw.

6. 6

   Sugar and serve

   Drain the rings on a rack or paper for a minute, then roll them in the cinnamon sugar while the surface is still glossy enough to catch it. Serve warm with the vanilla sauce poured beside or under them, not drowned over the top. Schön ist, was schmeckt.

Chef Tips

• •Use a tart apple with structure: Boskoop is the old choice, Elstar and Braeburn work well. A soft sweet apple collapses before the batter has browned, and then you've fried apple sauce.
• •Slice the rings evenly. Thin rings disappear into the crust, thick ones stay raw in the middle, and neither one is the dish.
• •Keep a rack ready. Paper towels are fine for a minute, but a rack keeps the underside crisp because trapped moisture has somewhere to go.
• •If the batter runs off the first ring, dust the apple very lightly with flour before dipping. It gives the batter a dry surface to hold onto, nothing clever, just kitchen sense.
• •Leftover vanilla sauce goes with baked apples or a slice of plain cake the next day. Weggeworfen wird nichts.

Advance Preparation

• •The vanilla sauce can be made up to 1 day ahead and chilled. Warm it gently over low heat, because a hard boil breaks the egg-thickened sauce.
• •The dry batter ingredients can be mixed earlier in the day. Add the milk, sparkling water, yolks, and folded whites close to frying, because the lift is best fresh.
• •Fry Apfelküchle just before serving. They are still edible later, but the crisp edge softens, and that edge is why you heated the oil in the first place.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 275g)