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Welcoming Friday and September apples with these Shortcut Easy Apple Fritters. Sweet Honeycrisp apples baked in between layers of extra buttery flaky puff pastry with cinnamon sugar and a sweet vanilla glaze. These shortcut fritters are so delicious and just perfect for autumn. If you’re heading out apple picking this fall, you must make these fritters. They’re simple to make and beyond delicious.
I say this every single season, but this is my time of year. These are the days I love so much. It’s funny because I’m in New York this week for multiple events and meetings, but it feels more like summer here. It’s 90 degrees and humid, but I’m still in my fall mode and so happy to be!
With September here, it’s time to focus on our apple recipes! Too many people jump ship and go right to pumpkin everything. But as I say every year, September is for apples, October is the time to break out the pumpkin recipes.
With that in mind, I have so many new apple recipes coming up – both sweet and savory! But per usual I had to share one of my favorites first. These apple fritters are the best treat!
When I set out to make these, I had every intention to make a more traditional fritter, but baked, not fried.
I adore a really great apple fritter made with local apples. Especially a New York State Empire apple (perfection). Just like the ones we used to get in western New York when I was little. Those memories inspired me to want to share a baked fritter recipe that would be just as delish.
Unfortunately, the baked fritters I was attempting to make weren’t turning out so great, so I kept thinking. And then while I was hiking I had this idea.
They aren’t classic fritters, but they’re so delicious. And they’re the easiest way I could think of to bake up a delicious apple fritter.
Details
Step 1: layer the pastry
We’re working with puff pastry for these fritters. The idea is to sandwich chopped-up apples between two sheets of puff pastry.
You’ll first want to layer the pastry with butter, apple butter, cinnamon sugar, and then the apples.
Next, roll the pastry up into a log and cut it into cute little rolls. As I type this out, it sounds kind of tricky, but it’s one of the easiest things.
Use the photo as guidance. And what I love about a fritter is that they’re naturally messy. The more not perfect they are, the better!
Don’t stress.
Step 2: flatten the pastries
Now that you have cute little apple rolls, you need to flatten them down so your fritters will be perfectly baked all around.
Use the palm of your hand to flatten each roll down.
Step 3: bake the fritters
Next, bake each fritter inside a paper cupcake liner. I ordered these on Amazon. Of course, you can skip these if you prefer and just bake the fritters directly in a sheet pan.
The liner just helps contain any apples that fall out.
Step 4: the glaze
I kept this glaze simple. These fritters are pretty darn yummy just as they are.
Powdered sugar, milk, vanilla, and sea salt. I sometimes add a touch of coffee too, which highlights that delish vanilla flavor.
You can dip or drizzle each fritter in the glaze or just skip the glaze altogether. I do one quick dip and always an extra sea salt sprinkle. Tis so delicious.
With all this apple talk, I’m going to encourage everyone to spend the first weekend of September out enjoying the nice weather and apple picking. Then come home and bake up these sweet shortcut easy apple fritters. How’s that for a plan!
See you guys on Sunday for another Favorite’s post.
Looking for other sweet apple recipes? Here are a few ideas:
Cinnamon Spiced Apple Fritters
Salted Maple Apple Tarte Tatin with Cinnamon Pumpkin Seeds
Sweet and Salty Chocolate Drizzled Cider Caramel Apples
Double the Streusel Apple Butter Bars
Lastly, if you make these Shortcut Easy Apple Fritters with Vanilla Coffee Glaze be sure to leave a comment and/or give this recipe a rating! Above all, I love to hear from you guys and always do my best to respond to each and every comment. And of course, if you do make this recipe, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram! Looking through the photos of recipes you all have made is my favorite!
Shortcut Easy Apple Fritters
Servings: 12 fritters
Calories Per Serving: 622 kcal
Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 4 sheets frozen puff pastry, thawed
- 4 tablespoons melted butter
- 2 tablespoons apple butter
- 3 cups chopped honeycrisp apples
Vanilla Glaze
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1/4 cup whole milk
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1-3 teaspoons instant coffee powder (optional)
- flaky sea salt
Instructions
- 1. Preheat the oven to 425° F. Arrange 12-15 paper cupcake liners on a baking sheet. 2. Mix the cinnamon and sugar together in a bowl.3. Lay one pastry sheet flat on your counter. Brush with 2 tablespoons melted butter, 1 tablespoon apple butter, then sprinkle with 1/2 of the cinnamon sugar. Arrange 1/2 of the apples over the sugar. Place a second sheet of pastry directly over the apples to cover. Gently press down to seal everything inside. Roll the dough into a log, like a cinnamon roll. 4. Cut the log into 6-8 rounds, placing each in the prepared paper cupcake liners. Repeat with the remaining pastry/apples. Use the palm of your hand to smoosh the round down to about 1/2 it's size (see photos). Sprinkle the tops lightly with any remaining cinnamon sugar. 5. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the pastry is deep golden brown. 6. To make the glaze, whisk all ingredients in a bowl, adding additional milk as needed to thin. Dip or drizzle the glaze onto the fritters. Eat warm. And enjoy.
This recipe was amazing. It was so easy and so delicious. I would definitely recommend!
Thank you so so much for giving this recipe a try! Hope you’re having a lovely week! xT
Hmm, how big did you roll out your puff pastry dough, it doesn’t say? I feel perhaps I didn’t roll mine enough.
Mine came out absolutely raw (puff pastry) inside and overdone outside. We do have a convection oven so I’ll try again and lower the temp to 375 and cook for longer. But I also suspect I need to roll thinner and use just one sheet of puff pastry for less dough.
High recommend baking these on a silpat instead of the liners. That amount of cinnamon sugar meant I had burned sugar syrup all over the silpat that would have been a nightmare to clean off a pan and would have glued the liners to the rolls. The taste was good though so we’ll fiddle with it.
Hey Josephine! Thanks for letting me know! Yes, I would maybe try to roll out the dough a but more so you can get that nice even bake on them! xT
They are very easy to make. However, some of my filling seeped out as it was baking. It caused my liner to stick to the bottom of the pastry. Overall, tasty.
Thanks for the feedback Brynne! xT
could these be cut into rounds and just baked flat on a silpat?
Hi Margaret! I haven’t ever tried that myself but that should work just fine! xT
Sharing hoping to help someone else! Giving a 3/5 on the recipe because I made several modifications to the recipe after following it as is. I was following the recipe for a serving size of 24:
1. I opted out of the second layer of pastry. At 425F, the outside of the pastry was very brown/almost burnt because the cinnamon sugar caramelizes, but the inside was underdone. Another person commented the same, so I began to modify with the second batch.
2. I decreased the oven temp to 400F and found that a 30 minute bake worked better using a single layer of pastry.
3. I added an egg wash before the final coating of cinnamon sugar.
4. I ran out of powdered sugar for the glaze. It was recommended to use 4 cups of powdered sugar. I used maybe a cup and a half of powdered sugar and eyeballed the amount of milk. But it was sufficient for the batch. I ended up with 7 sheets of pastry, each with 5-6 rolls.
5. I liked the tip to use a baking liner (less pan cleanup), but it was tricky to remove from the pastry since the filling gets sticky and caramelizes and runs outside the pastry.
Overall, after the modifications, the flavor and the level of sweetness was perfect. The flavor is a 5/5.
Hey there! Thank you so much for all of this feedback! It’s super helpful and I really appreciate it!
This is the best advice! Thank you for taking the time to leave your tips – mine turned out perfectly because of it. Thanks again!
Hi, just made these tonight – delicious. But I have two questions, is it really 1 Tablespoon of vanilla or should it be 1 teaspoon? My glaze was very runny. Also, my boys that ate them all (LOL) thought they were a little doughy. Could it work with only 1 sheet of dough and roll it up?
Thanks
Yes, it’s one tablespoon to get that yummy vanilla flavor! But if you’d like to use less that totally works as well! As far as only using one sheet of pastry, I haven’t ever tried that before so I’m not sure! xT
Made these fritters this morning, delicious!! I think next time I might add some chopped pecans. I also added some expresso powder in my glaze. It was great! It was so easy and took no time at all to have a delicious treat with my coffee this morning!
Oooh yummy, I bet the espresso powder was SO good with this! xT
Made these for a party last night, halved the recipe and still wound up with about 10/11 total. Really easy and came out great! Thanks for a good quick, yet “fancy” recipe to bring to a party for Fall.
Awesome!! Love to hear that this recipe was enjoyed! Have a great week! xT
Made these this morning. Super delightful! I will say the center was not fully done but the outside was getting pretty brown so I had to take them out of the oven. I chalk that up to an oven I am not fond of though so still giving 5 stars, will try a lower temp for longer time next time. Flavors were great and fam loved them. Wondering what coffee you recommend as my instant coffee granules didn’t dissolve in the frosting, but still tasted great!
Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a comment! Glad you enjoyed the recipe! Have a great day 🙂 xT
My absolute favorite doughnut I saved the recipe and going to try later, I love apple fritters and blueberry fritters as well😋🥰
Oooh would be so yummy with blueberry too!!
I struggled with the puff pastry so my “rolls” are mostly cinnamon apple mix with a crumbled puff pastry topping lol. But you really cannot go wrong with butter, sugar, and dough so it was delicious!!
These look delicious! Can you freeze these before baking and just bake a few at a time when you want them fresh? Thank you!
Hi! That should work fine! xT
What a great idea!!!
Tell me more about adding coffee to the glaze. Is it brewed coffee?
Hi Joanna! I use instant coffee powder to add to the glaze! xT
As much as I hate the passing of summer, I do love Fall comfort foods and Fall baking, Tieghan! These fritters look like a winner in my book and I just happen to have a box of puff pastry waiting for the right recipe to come along. I think this is it! Thank you SO much for always sharing your great recipes and your love of cooking!
Ohhh! And I just noticed they have apple butter in them too! I also just happen to have some homemade apple butter as well! 😘
I’m not sure about these but I’m not going to give up! 🙂 They stuck like glue to the cupcake liners so next time I’ll just do greased parchment paper on a cookie sheet.
Aw thanks so much! I am also sooo excited about fall! 🙂
Two questions before I give these a try (they do look delicious!!!) First, can they really be pressed down to 1/3 inch thick. That seems pretty thin considering the thickness of the apple chunks and the dough layers, And second, it looks like you sprinkled the tops with cinnamon sugar before they were baked but it doesn’t seem to accounted for in the ingredient amounts or directions. Can you help to make things a little clearer? Thank you.
The cinnamon and sugar amounts are listed in the ingredients. Step 2 says to mix them and Step 4 says to sprinkle the tops with any remaining cinnamon sugar. I didn’t see anything about pressing the rounds to 1/3-inch thick but that’s a good question. All I see is to “smoosh” them with your palm.
LOL! I see someone must have changed the directions already from this morning. Those are not the directions I read earlier. It would be nice if there was some mention of that, but oh well, I can live with it.
Hi there! They won’t be pressed down to a 1/3 of an inch, but try to press them down so it’s about 1/2 the size of the original roll! As for the cinnamon sugar, in step four it says to sprinkle the rest of the cinnamon sugar from the mixture that you made! Hope this helps! xT