If Outside Lands isn’t your speed, a much more low-key Bay Area festival is taking place the same weekend — and it’s the only opportunity you’ll get the whole year to try a very popular local treat. 

At the 50-year-old Gravenstein Apple Fair in Sebastopol, people flock to one booth the second they get through the gates: the apple fritter stand. 

“They’re probably the most popular food at the fair and they smell delicious, so that smell can attract people,” said Shelley Brown, who co-manages the apple fritter stand with her husband Alan Siegle. 

Siegle is a farmer in Sonoma County, and the couple are both volunteers for Sonoma County Farm Trails, the nonprofit behind the fair. The fair is Farm Trails’ primary annual fundraiser, which helps them to support local agriculture.

Apple fritters have been a staple of the apple fair since it first began 50 years ago. Before the pandemic, they were made by a different producer. In 2021, Farm Trails asked Brown and Siegle to take over the fritter stand.

“We said sure, but how do we make fritters?” Brown said. “Farm Trails arranged for us to get together with a couple of well-known local chefs at the home of one of them, and he had a bunch of recipes. … We practiced and tasted and picked a recipe, and so that was where it originated.”

Daniel Kedan of the now-shuttered Backyard in Forestville was the chef in question. His fritters are not the chunky, glazed apple fritters you typically find in a doughnut shop — they’re a much lighter variety, shaped like a regular round doughnut and designed to let the apples shine.

The fritters are made with organic Gravenstein apples from Dutton Ranch. The Gravenstein is an heirloom apple that was first planted in Sonoma County in the early 1800s. In recent years, Gravenstein production has declined due to suburban development, vineyard conversion and other factors, so the fair is part of an effort to keep the apple around. In Sonoma County, Gravensteins are typically only available from late July to mid-August, making the treat at the fair all that more special.

“They have a very short shelf life, so when they’re harvested they are only good for 3 or 4 weeks,” said Seigle. “So you can certainly get apple fritters other times of the year, but not with Gravenstein apples.”

To make the fritters, the apples are cored and sliced into rounds but not peeled. Those rounds are then dredged in a mixture of organic flour, milk and eggs, then cooked in the deep fryer with rice bran oil. They’re removed from the fryer just as the apple is starting to get soft and the fritter has browned, then sprinkled with powdered sugar and cinnamon. 

“The dough around them is very light, and then you hit the peel of the apple which has a lot of flavor and a lot of nutrition,” said Brown. “Ideally, the texture has just enough tooth to it but it’s still soft, not like a fresh apple. It’s a pretty yummy combination.”

Each fritter is fried to order, so lines at the booth can get long. Last year at the fair, I waited at least half an hour for my fritters, which Siegle said is not uncommon — sometimes, it can take even longer. Here’s a pro tip, though: Typically, waits are shorter toward the end of the day.

Last year, they sold 1,800 boats of fritters over the course of the two-day festival, but this year, they plan to double that. That’s thanks to the addition of two new deep fryers, bringing them up to a total of six. Boats of fritters are $8 (each comes with between five and eight fritters, depending on the size of the apples that year), with all proceeds benefiting Farm Trails. 

While Siegle and Brown are known as the “godparents” of the apple fritters, they’re getting some help managing the stand this year so they can focus on their main passion: the fair’s sustainability programs. Last year, the fair achieved 95% zero waste with measures such as sending food scraps to a local pig farm.

The Gravenstein Apple Fair has plenty of other apple treats on offer, such as apple pie, apple cider, apple slushies and apple kettle corn, but Siegle thinks there’s a reason people make a beeline for the apple fritter stand.

“I think people like to eat the apples, but they also like something that’s a little more decadent,” he said. “Deep fried, freshly cooked warm food that has powdered sugar on it is a big hit, especially in the morning.”