Oliebollen and appelflappen

My Dutch Opa used to make these every year on New Years Eve, and I've done them a few times since. This year, my son and I made them together for the first time.

Ingredients:

500 g of self raising flour
0.5 litre of milk
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of sugar
1 egg
100g raisins (or currants/sultanas)
1 litre of cooking oil (all the recipes online say 1l but we use a 2l bottle in a bigger saucepan so we can do more at once)
Icing sugar

Preparation:

1. Sift the flour into a bowl, make a hole in the centre and pour in half of the milk, the salt and the sugar. 
2. Stir with a wooden spoon to create a smooth batter. 
3. Next, beat the egg together with the rest of the milk and stir into the batter. 
4. Stir in the raisins so they are relatively evenly-spread.
5. Cover the batter with a damp tea towel and leave in a warm place for about an hour. 
6. After an hour you are ready to begin frying. The batter will be quite sticky. (Do not stir the batter any more). 
7. Heat the cooking oil in a large saucepan or deep fryer – you will know it is hot enough when smoke begins to rise or when you dip a spoon into the oil and it forms bubbles. (If the oil is too hot, the first oliebollen will cook fast on the outside but still be uncooked on the inside - if this happens, turn the oil off for a few minutes).
8. Create round balls using two tablespoons of the batter and drop one by one into the pan of oil. 
9. Fry for about 6-8 minutes or until a light golden colour. If the oil temperature is right, and the size of the ball is right, the oliebollen should automatically turn themselves over.
10. Drain on paper towel to remove any excess oil. 
11. Sprinkle the oliebollen generously with icing sugar and serve hot or cold.

Appelflappen

Use the same dough minus the raisins. We made a double-batch of dough and split it, then only added the raisins to one batch.

Additional ingredients:

6 Granny Smith (green cooking) apples
Sugar
Ground cinnamon

Preparation:

1. Prepare the batter as above.
2. Peel and core the apples and cut each into 4-5 slices.
3. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon and leave for 15 minutes.
4. Coat the slices of apple with the batter and fry them, a few at a time, until golden brown.
5. Drain on paper towel to remove any excess oil. 
6. Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve hot or cold.