Homemade French Quarter Beignets
First I would like to preface this by saying I have never been to New Orleans or Café Du Monde but I have heard so many great things about Beignets! So I decided to recreate them myself. This recipe is fairly easy and a family favorite in my house. So without further ado, let’s get right into it!
Ingredients:
½ cup sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 packet of dry active yeast
2 eggs
4 ½ cups all-purpose flour (Bread Flour can be used as well)
3/4 cup milk
½ cup warm water
Oil for frying (I used cottonseed)
3 cups of powdered sugar
Mix water, sugar and yeast in a large bowl. Let the mixture sit for 10 minutes. Foam should start to form.
In another bowl, whisk eggs, salt, vanilla and milk together.
Add the egg and yeast mixtures together.
Add flour to the egg and yeast mixture (I added one cup at a time) and also used a stand mixer.
Place dough on a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Be careful not to over mix the dough.
Oil a large bowl, place the dough in the bowl and cover with plastic wrap.
Let your dough rise for at least 1-2 hours.
Once the dough has risen, punch the dough back down, roll the dough to ¼ inch to ½ inch thickness and cut into 2 inch squares. Let the dough rise another 30 minutes.
Pour 3-4 inches of oil into a Dutch oven, deep fryer or frying pan and heat it to 350-370 degrees.
Place 3 pieces of dough into the fryer at a time. If you place too many in at once, the temperature of your oil will drop. **Make sure you are constantly flipping the Beignets until they are golden brown.
Drain on paper towels or drying rack and coat with powdered sugar.
Hopefully one day I will get to visit the beautiful city of New Orleans and sit down at Café Du Monde for their world famous Beignets, but until then, I’ll just enjoy making my own : ) I hope all of you enjoy this recipe.
