Honey-Drizzled Golden Banana Fritters
These crispy, golden, deep-fried banana fritters are spectacular! Honey really adds a subtle mellow sweetness and depth to the flavour of the caramelised bananas.
If you’ve not had honey-drizzled banana fritters, you have to try this right away! These crispy, golden, deep-fried banana fritters are spectacular!
Honey really adds a subtle, mellow sweetness and depth to the flavour of the caramelised bananas.
Each nugget packs such a punch.
The soft, almost creamy, warm flesh of bananas are punctuated with crispy batter when you sink your teeth into it.
When eaten with dollops of vanilla ice-cream, a simple snack is transformed into a heavenly dessert that’s a fitting cap-off to any meal.
Deep-fried banana fritters are a traditional Asian tea snack, often prepared with whatever bananas are available locally.
While some varieties of bananas are generally more suited to being deep-fried, I just use whatever I have at home, once they get a little too ripe.
If there’s one fruit I always have plenty of at home, it’s bananas!
So, I always try to find interesting ways to use up my over-ripe bananas.
I do the deep-fried fritters when the bananas are at the point where their peels have freckled considerably, and the flesh is soft and pliable, though still holding its shape.
Living in Singapore, we’re extremely fortunate to be able to get many varieties of bananas from countries in the Asian region – primarily, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Japan.
I must confess that I have probably the poorest general knowledge of varieties of bananas.
I used to have such a tough time trying to recognise the pertinent characteristics of each variety and their local names.
Pisang rajah, pisang tanduk, pisang emas – being the only ones most familiar to me (‘pisang’ being the word for ‘banana’ in the Malay language).
I’ve kind of given up on trying (for now) and am just content with leaving this task to my local fruit vendors at the market.
I simply ask the Uncle or Aunty to give me the sweeter varieties, which might end up as banana fritters, and I’m good to go!
Just a short word on this recipe – this batter produces a nice crisp, but in our humid weather, even the best of batters do not stay crisp for too long.
One approach I’ve taken is to keep the fritters in a warm oven set at about 100 to 110 deg C for a short period of time.
It helps prolong crispness until the moment I’m ready to serve.
Another effective approach I’ve also often used, if cooking a large quantity (say, anything more than 20 fritters) would be to par-fry the entire batch my first time round, letting them drain on paper towels for 5 minutes.
Then, deep-fry the second time until batter turns golden brown.
Honey-drizzled Golden Banana Fritters
Ingredients
- ¾ cup self-raising flour
- ¼ cup corn flour
- 1 tbsp caster sugar
- 2 tbsp milk
- 1 tbsp 20 g butter, melted
- 125 ml water plus more, as needed
- 3 – 4 medium-sized ripe bananas cut into thumb-length sections
- Some honey for drizzling, as needed
- oil for deep-frying
Instructions
- In a mixing bowl, combine the self-raising flour, corn flour, sugar, milk and melted butter using a wooden spoon or metal whisk.
- Then add water gradually, mix well until the batter is smooth and thick (read Recipe Notes #1 and #2 below). You may not need to use all the water, but if you require more, be sure to add in small amounts.
- Cut the bananas into thumb-length (2-inch) sections.
- Fill a wok one-quarter full with oil. Heat till medium hot (180 deg C) or until a small piece of bread fries golden brown in 15 seconds when dropped in the oil. Dip the banana pieces, 3 to 4 at a time, into the batter, and coat evenly all over with batter. Spoon and drop the pieces carefully into the hot oil. Fry until they turn golden brown on all sides, between 3 to 4 minutes. Scoop out and drain on a wire rack or paper towels. Repeat in batches until all the banana pieces have been fried (read Recipe Notes #3).
- Serve the banana fritters drizzled all over with honey (optional) for that extra smooth sweetness.
Notes
- If you lift the spoon or ladle with some batter to a height about 6 inches above the batter, and tip the the batter back into the bowl, the batter should be able to easily run off the spoon or ladle, in a generally smooth, slightly thick and continuous stream.
- If the batter stream is a tad runny, add more flour (e.g. 1 tbsp), bit by bit, to thicken. If the batter is too thick, and does not run off the spoon or ladle smoothly, add more water, bit by bit (e.g. 1 tbsp) at a time. Always mix to incorporate well, before adding more flour or water.
- You can keep the fritters in a warm oven set at about 100 to 110 deg C – just hot enough to provide a warm environment (but not hot enough to cook them further) to prolong its crispness until the moment you are ready to serve. Another effective approach is, if cooking a large quantity (say, anything more than 20 fritters), to par-fry the entire batch the first time round, letting them drain on paper towels for at least 5 minutes. Then deep-fry the second time until batter turns golden brown.
Nutrition Information:
