More snow - Snow Pancakes and Fritters

Once again a lot of us are in the midst of a snow storm...DC is shoveling out now, and in this 1925 photo.  Several years ago I posted recipes for Snow Cream, and this time it is Snow Pancakes or Snow Fritters.

One way to get rid of all this snow... cook with it.  To make ice cream out of snow go here: Snow Cream

The snow must be "dry snow" and the freshest top layer.  Snow contains ammonia which "soon evaporates, rendering old snow useless for this purpose [cakes]." [Buckeye Cookery.  Minneapolis: 1877]

Snow Fritters.
Take of light new fallen snow, three table-spoonsful for every egg you would otherwise use - that is, if you would wish the quantity that three eggs would make in the usual way, take nine table-spoonsful of snow, and stir in a quart of rich milk that has been setting in a very cold place, so that it will not melt the snow, and destroy its lightness; put in a tea-spoonful of salt, and enough wheat flour to make a stiff batter; have ready a frying-pan with boiling lard, and drop a spoon-ful in a place as with other fritters, and set the remainder in a cold place till the first are done.  Eat them with wine sauce, or sugar, butter and cream, or any thing you fancy. 

Lea, Elizabeth Ellicott.  Domestic Cookery.  Baltimore: 1851

Snow Pancakes.

Half a pint of milk, an egg, an apple, pared, quartered, and chopped very fine; a cupful and a half of flour, one-fourth of a teaspoonful of salt, a bowl of snow. Beat the egg light, and add the milk to it. Pour gradually on the flour, and beat until smooth and light. Add the apple and salt, and at the last moment the snow. Drop by spoonfuls into boiling fat, and cook until a rich brown.

Miss Parloa's New Cookbook: A Guide to Marketing and Cooking. New York: 1882

I have made Lea's recipe several times, but it only came out nicely once.

©2014 Patricia Bixler Reber
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