Sourdough Fried Apple Rings
These sourdough fried apples are sweet with a slight sourdough tang. A perfect appetizer, snack or dessert recipe to use your sourdough starter. Sliced apple rings dipped in a sourdough discard batter, deep fried to perfection and covered in cinnamon sugar.
Apples dipped in a sourdough batter, fried and sprinkled (err, rolled) in cinnamon and sugar. They are quick and easy to make and oh my, oh my, are they delicious! Like an apple donut, you won’t be able to stop eating these!
Other fun sourdough discard recipes:
How to make sourdough fried apples
These apple rings are easy to make! For the full recipe and directions, make sure you scroll down to the recipe card below. Here is a brief overview:
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the starter, salt, sugar, and cinnamon.
- Heat a large skillet with oil over medium-high heat until hot.
- Slice the apples and toss them into the batter.
- Carefully place a few apple slices below into the oil and allow to cook for 30 seconds on each side. When it’s golden, flip and cook on the other side.
- Place cooked slices on a wire baking rack to cool slightly.
- While still warm, toss the cooked apple slices in the cinnamon sugar.
- Enjoy!
These apple rings are best when served right after cooking.
Frying Tips
What kind of pan should you use to fry in?
You want a cooking vessel that is heavy, and stable and both wide and deep. A wok or deep cast iron skillet are great options.
What kind of oil should you use for frying?
The oil you use for frying should be clear, relatively flavorless, and should be able to be heated to high temperatures without smoking. When a hot oil starts smoking, it starts breaking down, and you don’t want that while you are cooking with it. Good choices are peanut oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, and canola oil. Olive oil is not a good choice for frying as it starts smoking at lower temperatures.
How much oil do I need to fry apple rings?
The amount of oil you use for frying depends on what kind of frying you want to do. For this recipe, we need about 1″ of oil in the bottom of your pan.
How hot do I need to heat the oil to?
Place the oil in the cold pan and turn it on to medium-high heat. Getting the oil hot and keeping it at that temperature is important for correctly fried foods that are moist and tender inside and golden and crispy outside. Oil that is too hot will burn the outside while not cooking the inside.
Oil that is not hot enough will cause the apple rings to cook too slowly, and it will absorb too much oil, which makes it taste not as good and also have a greasy mouth feel.
You want to heat the oil to 365°–375°F. Use a deep fat frying thermometer to monitor the temperature while you cook.
Frequently Asked Questions
What kind of apples should I use?
Use any kind of apple that will hold up well in cooking. I love Golden Delicious or Fuji apples!
What kind of sourdough do I need for this recipe?
This recipe uses a sourdough starter that is at a 100% hydration. You can either use fed and active starter, or you can discard. For reference on how to properly feed your sourdough starter and how to know when it is active, read the article Feeding Your Sourdough Starter.
The starter should be at room temperature when you use it for this recipe, as that helps it to mix into the cake batter better.
New to sourdough? Read my Ultimate Guide to Sourdough for Beginners to answer all the questions you have!
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Sourdough Fried Apple Rings
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 cup 100% hydration sourdough starter discard
- 2 apples sliced thinly and cored
- ⅛ tsp salt
- ¼ cup sugar
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- Cinnamon and sugar 1 cup sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, a pinch of nutmeg, mixed together
- 1 cup vegetable oil
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the starter, salt, sugar, and cinnamon.
- Heat a large skillet with oil over medium-high heat until hot. You want about 1 inch of canola oil in the pan.
- Slice the apples about ¼” thick - you should get about 6 slices from each apple. Then you can use a small round cookie cutter to cut out the core. An apple corer works, too!
- Use a fork to toss the apples into the batter, coating evenly.
- Carefully place a few apple slices (letting excess batter drip off before placing it into the oil) into the oil and allow to cook for 30 seconds - 1 minutes on each side. When it's golden, flip and cook on the other side.
- Place cooked slices on a wire baking rack to cool slightly.
- While still warm, toss the cooked apple slices in the cinnamon sugar.
- Enjoy!
Nutrition
Instead of frying in oil, can you put in oven air fryer?
You bet! I haven’t tested the timing of this in an air fryer, but I know that you can do it! If you try it, come back and let me know and I will add the info to the post!
These were SO good. Delicious crispy exterior and melting apple on the inside. I used a tart apple, which was perfect. Will be making them again for sure. Thank you for sharing!
Yum! Gotta love apple fritters. And they go great with the sourdough batter 🙂
Jenni, congrats on the move! Don't know why I didn't think to do apples, they look amazing and now I must try them!
Oh gosh cinnamon and sugar coated thing always win!
I can almost smell the fragrance!!
Diet tomorrow?
Have a lovely evening
Lou
Now I totally wish I'd done apples. I am totally doing apples in the fall. Those look so amazingly cin-full (groan… bad pun!). And welcome to your new home!!! 🙂