Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Milk, egg, vanilla, orange zest and juice, and the cooled butter in a bowl.
- Toss the cake flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together.
- Bring it together with the apples. Add a hair more milk if there's dry flour.
- Crisco in a cast iron Dutch oven, 350°. A scrap of dough should sizzle and float.
- Drop by small cookie scoop, about 10 at a time. Don't crowd them.
- Fry until golden and floating, turning once.
- Drain on paper towels. Let them cool a minute, then toss in powdered sugar.
- Serve with warm apple butter for dipping.
Notes
The Oil Temperature
350° in a heavy pot. Drop a scrap of dough in first. It should sizzle right away and float in a few seconds. Sinks and sits there, too cool, and they soak up grease and come out heavy. Browns before you can count to five, too hot, and the middle stays raw. That's the only thing that goes wrong with these.
The Orange
Zest and juice, the whole orange. That's what makes these taste like the Apple Barn, and it's what nobody can ever figure out. Don't skip it and don't swap it for lemon.
Good to Know
- Cake flour makes them lighter and more tender than all-purpose. Same 3 cups, don't convert.
- Let the melted butter cool before it meets the egg, or it'll scramble.
- Chop the apples small, about the size of a pea, so you get apple in every bite.
- Leftover cooked apple pie filling works. Drain it a little first.
- Small scoop. Any bigger and they puff up and the middle won't cook.
- Cool a minute before the powdered sugar or it melts right in.