Air Fryer Apple Fritter

 A healthier alternative to your local donut shop’s deep fried apple fritter with freshly diced apples, cinnamon brown sugar, and a sugar free glaze. You can make these apple fritters in an air fryer or baked them in an oven, and I’ve included a ton of tips for modifying the ingredients to make them even healthier. 

Below you’ll find a visual recipe walkthrough with ingredient notes. If you have a question about the printable recipe card at the bottom of the post, jump back up to the tutorial. I bet I covered it! 

Step 1: Mix all purpose flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg together.

Can I use something other than all purpose flour?

If you need a gluten free option, readers frequently use Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 GF all purpose flour for recipes like my biscuits and Greek yogurt pizza dough. As far as other types of flour go, it’s tricky to substitute in recipes where you need to form a dough. Almond, coconut, and other flours work much differently, and I wouldn’t recommend making substitutions unless you’re ready to experiment. 

Brown Sugar Note

I used zero-calorie Swerve Brown, which is a 1:1 substitute for brown sugar. If you don’t have any on hand, use the real deal or another 1:1 brown sugar substitute. 

Unlike my skillet monkey bread, this apple fritter only calls for two tablespoons. So the calorie differences from using real brown sugar aren’t that drastic. 

Step 2: Cut butter in with a fork until the flour resembles wet sand.

I tested both my regular butter alternative, Land O’ Lakes light butter, and real Kerrygold butter. Both options worked perfectly fine. The full fat butter is obviously a bit better. But if you want to save 50 calories, go with light butter. 

Step 3: Add peeled, diced apple. Stir to coat. 

The recipe calls for 40 grams of apple. Use a food scale to be precise if possible. If you don’t have a food scale, it’s better to undershoot the apple than overshoot.

Too much moisture could lead to a soggy and/or dense apple fritter, and nobody wants that. 

Step 4: Add fat free Greek yogurt.

The recipe calls for vanilla, but you can use plain and add some vanilla extract. You can even use plain without the vanilla extract. The apple and cinnamon pack enough of a flavor punch on their own. 

Step 5: Stir until a crumbly begins to form. Don’t over mix. 

Some dry ingredients left at the bottom of the bowl are perfectly fine. Once you start to see large clumps, you can use those to pick up straggling dry ingredients. 

Like I’ve mentioned in previous dough recipes (air fryer cheese bread, biscuit pizza, etc.), over mixing can overdevelop the gluten in the flour and lead to a flat/dense apple fritter. 

Step 6: Use your hand to form a ball of dough.

You should be able to handle the dough without any sticking to your hand(s). If your dough is sticky, you likely made a measurement error somewhere. No worries. You can add a bit more flour, chill the dough, or spray your hand with a bit of nonstick cooking spray to make it work. The latter is my usual go-to strategy. 

The recipe calls for transferring the dough to a flat surface, but I sometimes form the dough right there in the mixing bowl. Reduced cleanup for the win! 

Step 7: Press the dough into a rough oval and place in an air fryer basket with cooking spray. 

Don’t sweat the perfect size/shape with your apple fritter. In the recipe card’s notes section, you’ll see instructions for doubling the recipe and air frying two apple fritters at once. Those will need to be a bit more narrow, causing them to also be a bit thicker than the solo fritter pictured above. Both work perfectly fine with very slight air fry time modifications. 

As for air fryer notes, I used my 6.5-quart Ninja Foodi. Different models/sizes may require a little cook time tweak. And if you’re using a smaller air fryer, you probably won’t be able to double the recipe. You could, however, cut the base recipe in half to make two smaller apple fritters. 

Step 8: Air fry at 375ºF for 12-14 minutes until golden brown. Glaze the apple fritter with a powdered sugar and water mixture. 

For the glaze, I used another zero-calorie Swerve product in their confectioner’s sugar. Plain ol’ powdered sugar will do the trick. I’ve not had much luck in developing a true apple fritter glaze with things like protein powder and corn starch or anything like that. So just keep it simple. 

And as a bonus tip, if you want a really thick glaze you can double glaze. Just pour on the base glaze then mix another tablespoon of powdered sugar with a little less than a teaspoon of water to pour on top of the first layers once it sets. 

Final Air Fryer Apple Fritter Recipe Notes

How to Bake These Apple Fritters in an Oven

I tested this apple fritter recipe directly on a baking sheet in a 375ºF oven. After 25 minutes, the fritter was baked through but lacked the browning/crispy exterior you get from the air fryer. Using the broil function for an additional 3-5 minutes at the end of baking did the trick, though. 

You could also try adding a layer of glaze and placing that under the broiler. Then add a second layer of glaze once out of the oven. 

Substituting Flour for Protein Powder

After publishing the skillet monkey bread I mentioned above, a few readers successfully experimented with substituting protein powder for some of the all purpose flour in the recipe. I did two protein powder experiments with this apple fritter recipe.

The first used a full scoop (31g) of PEScience Select whey and casein protein powder in place of 1/4 cup (30g) of all purpose flour. And the second used a half scoop (15g) of protein powder in place of 2 tablespoons (15g) of all purpose flour. Both versions worked, though the full scoop of protein powder, as you’d expect, made the fritter a bit tough as it cooled.

If you wanted to try substituting some flour for protein powder, I’d start on the lower end with a half scoop and work your way up. And in case you’re new to my recipes, you can use my affiliate code mason to save 15% on PEScience Select protein powder.

And I think that about covers it. If you have a recipe question I missed, leave a comment at the bottom of this post. Enjoy your apple fritters!