Homemade Apple Fritters are fried donuts filled with freshly chopped apples and then dunked in a sweet apple-cinnamon glaze.

Homemade Apple Fritters

Apple fritters are one of my favorite pastries. In a donut shop, I will admire all the donuts and eclairs, and everything else. But it is the apple fritter that will finally be the one I walk out with. So of course I had to nail down being able to do them at home.

Try our Blueberry Muffins too!

Is an apple fritter the same as a donut?

An apple fritter and a donut do share some common traits, but then they go their separate ways. Both start with essentially a “Pâte à choux” pastry batter. This is the light and buttery batter at the heart of all great pastries.

Once you master this french-style pastry batter, a wonderful world of delicious fancy treat making opens up to you.

Donuts don’t have fresh fruit mixed in, however, and typically are formed into rounds. These apple fritters are scooped and fried after being gently mixed with fresh apple chunks.

A donut and a fritter are shaped differently, but they both start with a choux batter. The difference goes beyond the shape of the finished pastry though.

In this case, a fritter contains fruit in the dough. Not in between the dough or inside the dough, which is what you get with jelly or cream-filled donut. Fritters mix a portion of the fruit into the batter.

Fritters can contain all sorts of things besides apples. If you like fritters, then feel free to try a savory version with other ingredients like corn or even little bits of ham. You’ll want a less sweet dough base, but you can see where I’m going with this.

Fritter away!

More great BREAKFAST RECIPES here!

Apple Fritters shopping list

Wondering if you have to hit the store? Here’s the list of items you’ll need to make this recipe. For specific amounts, please refer to the printable recipe card at the bottom of the post.

oil
flour
white sugar
brown sugar
baking powder
apple pie spice
salt
eggs
milk
butter
apples
powdered sugar

Our Blueberry Brioche French Toast Bake is easy and delicious!

How to make Apple Fritters

This is just the overview so you can see what you’re actually getting into here. When you are cooking, you’ll want to use the full recipe at the bottom of the page.

Traeger Banana Bread goes great with these fritters!

My favorite apple pie spice

I have said it before and I will say it again, Spiceology is awesome. I have a slight problem, and my spice pantry is overflowing, but MAN. They do so many wonderful spice blends that I have used on other recipes like Nashville hot chicken mac and cheese and a ton of my recipes using Greek Freak.

With their Apple Spice blend, you get all the flavors of traditional apple pie. Cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, basically everything you need to season the apples perfectly. They nail just the right balance of each so it takes the guesswork out of the equation.

The apple spice blend works great for my spiced apple waffles recipe too by the way!

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Tips for perfect apple fritters

There are a few things to keep in mind if you want good consistent fritters coming out of the hot oil.

• Make sure your oil is 360-375°. Use a proper thermometer to get the temp right. Keep checking the temp to make sure your oil isn’t cooling too much as you add in the fritters. If you don’t then you risk them coming out greasy. Too hot and the outside cooks but the inside is still raw dough.
• Make sure the apple bits are well distributed through the batter. You don’t want some fritters coming out with too much or too little fruit inside.
• When you dunk the cooked fritter in the glaze, make sure it has cooled enough. Otherwise your glaze just becomes too liquid and won’t stick on thickly enough. We did two coats on most of them and it was perfect.
• Start with nice cold eggs. The colder the eggs the slower the gluten develops, so you get a better texture.
• Don’t over-mix the batter. Again, you don’t want to overdevelop the gluten in the flour, or else you get a less fluffy texture.

Fisher Fair Scone Waffles are another favorite treat of ours!

More great desserts to try

Many people don’t think they can do pastries or make desserts, but once you see how simple making dough for fritters is, hopefully, you won’t have that issue anymore. If you do need some more recipes to try, then I have a few suggestions.

If you want to check out a bunch of recipes from some of my favorites, then here is my dessert idea roundup. For a dessert that requires only four ingredients and couldn’t be any simpler, then try my easy berry dessert. It doesn’t get any easier than that!

Try some of these delicious breakfast treats!