Please help me with my deep fat fryer!!!

[LetMeBakeCake]

I’m really hoping someone else owns and has tamed their deep fat fryer and can help me!
I batch cook for my children and use the Annabel Karmel books and there are a lot of finger foods in there that look great, but I never make because they have to be fried and I can’t be doing with filling pans with oil and the smell etc in our open plan House.
Anyway with my youngest point blank refusing to be spoon fed I kept longingly looking at recipes that result in food in ‘ball’ form and so bought a fryer.
Anyway here’s the problem - it seems to burn stuff on the outside pretty instantly and not cook in the middle - what am I doing wrong??
Thank you for your help!

What have you set the temperature at? Most foods do better starting off on a lower temp then turn the heat up later.

You need to turn the temperature down so it cooks more slowly and evenly

Yes it has several temperatures with pretty unhelpful guidlines as to what cooks at which temp!
I did it on the second lowest which is 160 degrees - I’ll try 150 next time. Perhaps I’ll try taking out the fridge a half hour before as well so it’s not really cold
I’ve just found it really difficult to find any sort of guidelines on how long things take and at what temp

Could the food items be cooked in the oven instead or maybe an air fryer would have been a better option

Fried food needs to be room temperature before you fry it, otherwise the heat won't reach the centre before the outside is overdone.

You fry at a low temp to begin with to cook the food, remove it from the frye, turn up the temp and then re-fry to get it golden.

Don't leave the items in when you turn up the heat - they need to cook at 2 specific temperatures.

Chicken can be very tricky (thighs/wings/drumsticks etc) as the meat is dense. I follow nigella's advice and poach them in buttermilk to cook them, then apply the flour/egg/breadcrumbs and fry to get crispy on the outside without any worry about it being underdone.

Thank you for your replies I actually tried again taking the food out of the fridge way ahead of time, cooked it on the lowest temperature possible and after a mere 45 seconds it was black (and raw in the middle) I decided I’m not an idiot and clearly it was faulty and returned it
I am now using an air fryer instead!