It’s cherry season on the east side of Washington state. Which means we’re seeing a bounty of freshly picked cherries.
This is clearly not an everyday dish. But, if you make it for friends and split the fritters between a crowd, it’s a wonderfully delicious celebration of this seasonal fruit.
In a large mixing bowl, add 2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 t baking powder, a pinch of salt, 2 T sugar and 2 T ground cinnamon. Stir them all together, and then stir in 1 1/3 cups milk, 4 egg yolks (save the whites into an electric mixing bowl!), 1 T vegetable oil and the juice of half a lemon. Stir until it’s a smooth batter.
In another large bowl, whip the four egg whites until they form soft peaks. Then fold them into the batter. Now, fold in 2 cups of pitted cherries. If you have patience, cut each cherry in half. If not, just dump them in there whole. The taste will be the same. But when you’re eating the fritters, the whole cherries take a while to cool down and you may find yourself burning the roof of your mouth as you eat them as fast as they come out of the oil.
Heat 3 inches of vegetable oil in a deep, heavy dutch oven or saucepan. When it reaches 375 C, drop a few tablespoons of the batter and fry the fritter for 2 or 3 minutes on one side, then flip and fry on the other side until golden. Set them aside on a paper-towel-covered dish in a warm oven. Cook all the fritters and serve to friends. Or, let friends hover around the stove and just eat them straight off of the paper towels. Your call. Oh, sprinkle with powdered sugar and maybe a squeeze of the other half of lemon, too.
This recipe is from Pacific Northwest The Beautiful Cookbook. We have a couple of other recipes we love from this book by Kathy Casey, too – Mussels in a Guinness Cream Broth and Hearty Walnut Stout Bread.
Ingredients
- 2 cups plain flour
- 1 T baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 T sugar
- 2 T ground cinnamon
- 1 1/3 cups milk
- 4 eggs, separated
- 1 T vegetable oil
- juice of half a fresh-squeezed lemon
- 2 cups pitted cherries
- vegetable oil for frying
- powdered sugar
Related articles
- sweetcorn fritters (mylovelylittlelunchbox.com)
- Cherry Clafouti – A Deliciously Simple Dessert (seattlefoodshed.wordpress.com)
- Strawberry Rhubarb Compote with Mint (seattlefoodshed.wordpress.com)
Seattle Foodshed 
One thought on “Fresh Northwest Cherry Fritters”