Honey-Drizzled Banana Fritters

By Cheryl Sternman Rule

This recipe gets its sweetness from turbinado sugar, honey, and bananas, which become delightfully soft and almost custardy. Because it’s traditional to eat foods fried in oil during Hanukkah, look no further if you celebrate this festive holiday.

1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons turbinado or (light or dark) brown sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup lowfat milk
1 whole egg plus 1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
6 bananas, peeled and cut into 1 inch chunks
Canola oil for frying
Honey for drizzling

Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt on a piece of waxed paper.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the milk, whole egg, egg yolk, and almond extract. Sprinkle the dry ingredients over the wet and stir gently with a rubber spatula to combine. Add banana chunks and stir to coat.

Affix a candy thermometer to a deep saucepan, and add one inch of oil. Bring oil slowly up to 375 degrees. (Adjust heat as necessary to maintain this temperature throughout frying.) Working in batches, carefully spoon battered banana chunks into hot oil, four to six at a time, without crowding the pan. Fry until golden brown, 1-2 minutes per side, turning them carefully as they bob. Using a slotted spoon, remove to paper towels to drain. Drizzle hot fritters with honey and serve immediately.

Makes 35-40 fritters

http://nourishnetwork.com/members/liahuber/ Lia Huber

If you’re freaking out about these fritters being deep fried, let me ease your mind a bit. Deep frying, although it demands quite a bit of oil, doesn’t actually impart that much oil to the food. As long as your temperature is correct (which is very important, too low and the food will soak up the oil like a sponge, too hot and it will start to smoke and release free radicals), foods absorb on average about a teaspoon of oil per 4 ounces of uncooked food.

So let me translate that with regards to these fritters . . . (can you tell I’ve been playing with numbers lately?): Six medium bananas with batter weigh in somewhere around 900 grams, which comes out to about 32 ounces. Which means they’ll absorb about 2 tablespoons of oil, equating to about 250 calories for 20 or so servings at an additional 10 calories a serving.

It’s been well proven that what counts health-wise is the type of oil we use, and in this case, we’re using good-for-you Canola oil (even better, look for organic, expeller-pressed).

So there. My hole-poking in the “deep frying is bad” argument. Should you do it all the time? Probably not. Is it something you can do every once in a while and not feel horrendously guilty? Yes.
http://www.bunsinmyoven.com Karly

These sound amazing! My husband and kids would just love these. Thanks for the recipe!