Fried Apple Rings (Apfelkücherl)

Today is the second day of Advent and our world-famous Christmas Markets here in Germany are in full swing.

There are so many delicious foodie aromas floating in the air that it’s hard to know where to start, but I always make a beeline for the stand selling one of my favourite market treats: Fried Apple Rings or Apfelkücherl.

Table of Contents

Deep Fried Apple Rings on a plate with cinnamon and apples in the background.

Made from juicy slices of apple coated in beer batter and cinnamon sugar, I can wolf down a whole serving of these in a flash, and I bet you will too!

Ingredients

German Fried Apple Rings are a very old-fashioned treat, which means you only need very simple ingredients to prepare them.

Apples: The best variety for this sort of recipe is Granny Smith apples, and I use them whenever I make Apfelkücherl. Other sour apple varieties will work too, but you need large apples that can stand up to high-temperature cooking.
Beer: We love an excuse to sneak beer into everything here in Bavaria, but it adds a delicious yeasty balance to this batter. If you really can’t have alcohol you could switch it out for soda water or lemonade, but they make fabulous non-alcoholic beers and malt drinks these days and I’d recommend that you use one of those if alcohol is a concern.
Eggs, Flour and Sugar: Combine to make the rest of our batter, I use plain or all-purpose flour, European large-size eggs (that’s U.S extra large) and white sugar.
Oil: These apple rings need to be fried for the perfect texture! You can use any neutral vegetable oil such as sunflower or canola oil. Shortening or lard are also superb with deep-fried goods.
Cinnamon: Apples and cinnamon are one of those culinary matches made in heaven. If you like you could omit the cinnamon sugar and dust these apple rings with powdered sugar instead… or do both!

Instructions

To make Deep Fried Apple Rings, it’s important to keep your kitchen clear and organised as you will be working with hot fat.

First, prepare a bowl of acidulated water by mixing lemon juice and cold water. This will keep your apple slices lovely and fresh. Next peel and core your apples. An apple corer (or Kernhausaustecher, one of my all-time favourite German words) will make this quick and easy, but you can remove the cores from each individual slice using a small cookie cutter or a piping tip if you need to. Soak apple slices in the prepared water.
To make the batter, separate the egg, beat the white until stiff (a hand whisk is best here as it’s only one egg white), then mix together the remaining ingredients in a separate bowl. Fold under the egg white, keeping as much air as you can in the mixture.
Heat around 5cm (2 inches) of oil in a large, heavy-based saucepan or Dutch oven to 180°C / 350°F. If you don’t have a thermometer you can use an old German trick, dip the handle end of a wooden spoon in the oil, when it fizzes with tiny bubbles, the oil is hot enough to cook with.
Pat the apple slices dry with a paper towel, then dip each slice of apple in the batter, turning until well coated, then deep fry 3 or 4 at a time, turning occasionally until golden brown on both sides. Drain briefly on a paper towel lined plate, then toss in cinnamon sugar and eat warm. Delicious!