Strawberry-fritters
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You’ll find this recipe in:
The Practice of Modern Cookery
By George Dalrymple
Edinburgh, 1781
Historic Recipe
Baignets des Fraiſes. Strawberry-fritters.
MAKE a batter with flour, a ſpoonful of oil, white-wine, a little raſped lemon-peel, the whites of two or three eggs; make it pretty ſoft, juſt fit to drop with a ſpoon; mix ſome large ſtrawberries with it, and drop them from a ſpoon, the bigneſs of a nutmeg, into the hot fritter; when a good colour, take them out and drain them on a ſieve; when ready to ſerve, ſtrew ſugar over, or glaze them.
My Recipe
2 ½ cups sliced strawberries – 375 g
3 egg whites
Grated rind of 1 lemon
1 tbsp oil
¾ cup white wine – 180 mL
1 cup flour – 100 g
Butter or oil for frying
White sugar to sprinkle on top or make a glaze with lemon juice and white sugar
1. Wash your strawberries and remove the leaves. Slice the strawberries if they are large, but feel free to keep small strawberries whole.
2. Separate the egg whites & yolks and grate the lemon zest. In a mixing bowl, whisk together the egg whites, lemon zest, oil and white wine. Gradually whisk in the flour until you have a stiff batter (you may not need to add the full cup/100 g). Stir the strawberries into the batter.
3. Heat butter or oil in a frying pan. Drop the batter & strawberries from a tablespoon to form small fritters and flip when browned on the bottom. Strew with white sugar before serving, or mix together lemon juice & white sugar together to taste and drizzle the glaze on top of the fritters.
Strawberry-fritters is one of the recipes that we made at an open hearth cooking class that I taught at Nelles Manor Museum last summer. This class featured scrumptious seasonal recipes made with garden produce and recipes from the late 1700s, when the home was newly built by the Nelles family.
I learned when I made Apple Frazes that adding a bit of alcohol to your batter is a good idea, so I made a batch for a socially distanced outdoor Canada Day gathering. They taste like fried strawberries and white wine and I liked them so much that I wanted to make the recipe again here on this blog and share it with all of you!
When I made the Strawberry-fritters at home, of course I fried them in a pan on my stove, but at the open hearth class, we fried them in a pan set upon a trivet over a bed of hot coals. Have a look at the pictures below to see how we fried them, and also the finished platters of fritters made by the class attendees.
If you’re curious to know more about this process, have a look at my Carrot Fritters post, where I write about a variety of frying techniques in open hearth cookery.
As well, if you had a look at the 1781 Strawberry-fritters recipe and are wondering about the letter that looks a bit like an F, but is placed where an S should be, head over to To Boil Green Peas, where I cover the use of the Long S in the English language and when & why that letter fell out of use.
Nelles Manor Museum has reopened for tours, with COVID-19 precautions in place. Have a look at the Nelles Manor website to find out their latest hours and approaches.
