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Homemade Apple Fritters with Buttery Maple Glaze

These Homemade Apple Fritters are surprisingly simple to make and they are OUT OF THIS WORLD delicious! Light and fluffy on the inside, crisp on the outside, drenched in buttery maple glaze - they practically melt in your mouth. 
Course Dessert
Cuisine Dessert
Keyword Easy Apple Fritters, Homemade Apple Fritters, Apple Desserts, Fall Desserts
Prep Time 45 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Dough Resting 1 hour
Servings 8 fritters
Calories 631kcal
Author Stephanie Simmons

Ingredients

For the Fritter Dough

  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 tsp active dry yeast not instant yeast
  • 2 TBSP granulated or cane sugar
  • 2 TBSP Danish Creamery European-Style Salted Butter, melted
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 egg
  • 1 and 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  • vegetable oil, for frying

For the Caramelized Apples

  • 2 apples, peeled, cored, and chopped up Use something that's firm and good for baking like Ginger Gold or Granny Smith
  • 2 TBSP Danish Creamery European-Style Salted Butter
  • 2 TBSP granulated or cane sugar
  • 1 TBSP brown sugar, packed
  • 3/4 tsp cinnamon
  • pinch of salt

For the Buttery Maple Glaze

  • 6 TBSP Danish Creamery European-Style Salted Butter, melted
  • 1 and 1/2 cups powdered sugar
  • 3 TBSP real maple syrup
  • 1 TBSP vanilla extract
  • 3 TBSP milk
  • pinch of cinnamon
  • pinch of salt

Instructions

  • Prep: Get out a large heavy-bottomed pot (like a dutch oven) for frying. Add vegetable oil until the pot is BLANK full. Don't start heating it yet. This recipe is not as hard as you may think - but do read through the directions once before beginning so you have a handle on things.
    Line a baking sheet with paper towels, place a cooling rack on top, and set this next to the stove where you'll be frying your fritters later.
  • Make the Fritter Dough: Measure out the milk and microwave it for 40 seconds - it should be about 110 degrees F. You can test it with the same thermometer you'll be using to fry the dough. If it's within 5ish degrees either way you should be fine.
    Add the milk and the yeast to a medium mixing bowl. Stir a few times, then let rest for 5 minutes. The yeast will be foamy. Next, add the melted and slightly cooled butter, the sugar, egg, and vanilla. Stir to combine and break down the egg. Next, stir in the flour, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Stir until you have a wet, shaggy looking dough (see photos in the post above). Flour the counter and your hands well - dump the dough out and knead it gently for 1-2 minutes, to smooth it out. Form it into a ball. Spray the same mixing bowl (no need to clean it out) with cooking spray, place the dough ball in it, cover with a kitchen towel, and let rise about an hour - the dough should double in size.
  • Make the Caramelized Apples: While the dough rises, make the apples. Add the butter to a medium nonstick pot on the stove, and melt. Once melted, add the rest of the apple filling ingredients. Cook over medium high heat, stirring, for about 10 minutes - or until the apples are tender and the mixture has caramelized. Remove from heat.
  • Make the Glaze: Melt the butter. Whisk in the remaining ingredients, adding the milk last. The mixture should be a bit runny. Set aside.
  • Assemble the Fritters:
    Photos for these steps are all included in the blog post above. BEGIN HEATING YOUR FRYING OIL OVER MEDIUM-HIGH HEAT AT THIS POINT, WITH YOUR CANDY THERMOMETER ATTACHED TO THE POT. IT WILL TAKE A BIT TO HEAT THE OIL to 365 degrees F SO YOU WANT TO START AHEAD OF TIME.
    Once the dough has risen, flour your counter and gently pat the dough out into a rectangle that's a little less than 1/2 inch thick. Spread 2/3 of the apple mixture onto the dough, leaving a 1-inch border around the edge. Fold the bottom third of the dough up, and then fold the top third of the dough down onto the bottom third, like you're folding a letter. Gently pat the dough back out until it's about 3/4 inch thick. Add the remaining 1/3 of the apple mixture, and fold into thirds from side to side this time, instead of from top to bottom. Gently press the dough out one last time to about 3/4 inch thick.
    Spray a large kitchen knife well with cooking spray. Slice the dough into 24 squares - wiping the knife and re-spraying between as necessary so the dough doesn't stick. Using well-floured hands, gather the pieces into 8 mounds, and gently work them into rough balls, tucking the apples in as best you can. These should NOT be perfect balls - they should be lumpy and bumpy and odd - that's part of the charm of apple fritters! We're mainly just trying to get the dough to hold together into 1 mound, with the apples tucked in so they don't all fall out when we fry them.
    Let these balls rest for 15 minutes.
  • Fry the Fritters: Check that your oil is heating - you can turn up the heat if it's going too slowly. Be careful - the oil will be VERY hot. Once the oil is at 365 degrees F, keep your burner at medium heat, and fry the first fritter as a test, for 90 seconds on each side, using a metal slotted spoon or spatula to transfer it in and out of the pot. It should turn a nice deep shade of golden brown. Let the test fritter cool on the rack until cool enough to handle, and cut it open to see if it's done. If it's not done, check that your oil is at 365 degrees F, and adjust the heat as needed.
    Continue with the remaining fritters, frying for 90 seconds on each side, until deep golden brown, making sure to keep an eye on the oil temp, and adjusting the burner heat as necessary to keep it constant. That's the main thing to keep in mind with frying donuts or fritters - if the heat is too low, they won't fry properly, and if it's too high, they'll burn quickly on the outside while remaining raw on the inside.
  • Glaze the Fritters: The glaze may clump up a bit while it sat - the butter starts to firm back up. Just pop the bowl in the microwave for 8-15 seconds and stir until it smooths out.
    As soon as the fritters have cooled enough to handle (not cooled completely - these are best eaten while still hot), dunk them in the glaze, and place on a cooling rack over a parchment-lined baking sheet. You can scrape the excess glaze that falls off back into the bowl and re-use it.
  • Serve + Store: Enjoy immediately! Apple Fritters are best when fresh and warm! They won't be as good the next day, but you can store any leftovers (if you have any, hehe) in an airtight container at room temp for a day.

Nutrition

Calories: 631kcal