My coworker (and food truck buddy, onoz!) recently left our office to pursue a job elsewhere.  I’m pretty bummed he had to leave, but would never begrudge him such a thing.  And besides, what’s the best way to soothe sadness?

That’s right.  Beignets.

I actually made beignets for the first time a couple weeks prior to this; a friend had a cajun family-style meal and I offered to bring dessert.  Beignets seemed to fit the theme, so with his help I made a fairly decent (if slightly over-cooked) batch.  Don’t fry things while drinking wine, kids.  Not only is it unsafe, it also yields burned beignets.

But I digress.

I wanted to make something nice for his last day at work and as usual wanted to do something new and creative (I should keep a tally of how many times I make chocolate cupcakes @.@).  I decided on the beignets because I’d only made them once before, and now that I’d given them the old college try a second attempt would likely yield better and less over-done delectables.

One thing I really like about beignets is how deceivingly simple they are.  They’re something that look like they should be difficult to make, what with their fried and poofy nature, but in reality are all about keeping the dough well-floured and not letting them sit in the oil for too long.  I bet making great beignets takes a little more pizzaz, but making good ones are pretty straight forward.

The toughest part for me was keeping the oil at the right temperature.  At first the temperature was perfect – my beignets were turning out golden brown.  But because I didn’t immediately turn the heat slightly back down, the oil continued getting hotter and started burning some of them; it took me a little tinkering to get the temperature back down to a good place.  Luckily I didn’t truly burn any of them, only made them a little darker than I would’ve liked.

  

The second toughest thing for me was being okay with using a lot of flour.  A lot.  Being of a cautious nature when it comes to making breads, I’m always hesitant about making the dough too dry; I think that’s why I hate making pie crusts: “Shouldn’t this have less flour in it??” I always ask myself angrily.  When it comes to beignets, though, keeping everything well floured is essential.  The dough is delicate; letting it get stuck to anything basically means you’re going to end up pulling your dough into weird shapes and have non-round beignets (as you can see a bit in the above pictures).  Which really has no effect on the taste, they just look oblong and funny.  So flour ’em up!

In the end, regardless of their pseudo-burned nature, they were all good.  I would’ve thought they were only tasty fresh out of the oil (and to be fair, that’s when they’re the best) but after sitting in a bowl for a day they were still delicious!  if you’ve never tried making beignets before you should definitely give this recipe a whirl.  It’s low-key, and if you want to get some of the work done ahead of time you can absolutely do everything but the frying the day before, slap them into the refrigerator, and fry them when you get up the next morning.  Good show!

New Orleans Beignets

Adapted from Southern Living.com.
Makes ~20 beignets.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups flour
• 1/4 cup + 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 package yeast
• 1/2 cup evaporated milk
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tbsp shortening
• Enough peanut oil for frying (can also use vegetable oil)
• Powdered sugar for topping

Instructions:
1. Combine yeast, 1/4 cup warm water, and 1/2 tsp sugar.  Let stand for 5 minutes.
2. Beat in evaporated milk, egg, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1/4 cup sugar.
3. Microwave 1/4 cup of  water until hot and melt the shortening into it.  Let cool until warm and add it to the yeast mixture.
4. Gradually add 4 cups and beat until the dough is sticky.  Transfer to a greased bowl, cover, and refrigerate for 4-24 hours.
5. Liberally flour your surface & rolling pin and roll the dough until it’s ~1/4″ thick.  Cut the dough however you like; I prefer using a small glass as opposed to cutting into squares (but only because I suck at rolling dough into an recognizable shape).
6. Heat oil to ~360F (I tend to eyeball this to “when it seems hot enough”).  Fry the dough in batches, only ~1 minute per side; they should be golden brown.
7. Drain on a wire rack or on paper towels, cover with powdered sugar.  You can either roll the beignets in a bowl of powdered sugar, or liberally dust them over the top.  I prefer the second method, mostly because it’s less messy and looks pretty.
8. CONSUME!