🍩 Beignets
Beignets are squares of soft yeast dough deep-fried until they puff up into hollow, golden pillows. The dough is made with flour, milk, egg, a little sugar and yeast, and the hot beignets are buried under a thick layer of powdered sugar. In New Orleans they are eaten fresh from the fryer, usually three to an order, with a cup of coffee.
Diets
Allergens
Contains (in a typical recipe):
What it is made of
Recipe
Ingredients
- 250 ml warm milk
- 7 g dried yeast
- 50 g sugar
- 1 egg
- 450 g plain flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil for the dough
- Vegetable oil for deep-frying
- 60 g powdered sugar for dusting
Method
- Stir the yeast and a pinch of the sugar into the warm milk and leave for 10 minutes until foamy.
- Whisk in the egg, the rest of the sugar and 2 tbsp oil, then add the flour and salt and knead into a soft, slightly sticky dough.
- Cover and leave to rise for about 1 hour, until doubled.
- Roll the dough out 5 mm thick and cut it into 5 cm squares.
- Heat the oil to 175 °C and fry a few squares at a time for 1–2 minutes per side, until puffed and golden. Drain on paper towels.
- Dust generously with powdered sugar and serve warm.
How to make it lighter
- Beignets are dense in calories because they are fried: stop at one or two and pair them with black coffee instead of a sweet milky drink.
- Keep the oil at a steady 175 °C — dough fried in cooler oil soaks up noticeably more fat.
- Sift on a light dusting of powdered sugar rather than a thick drift; 1 tbsp powdered sugar is about 30 kcal.
History
Fried dough fritters came to Louisiana with French settlers in the 18th century, and the word beignet is simply French for fritter. In New Orleans the square, yeast-raised version became a fixture of the French Quarter coffee stands. Louisiana named the beignet its official state doughnut in 1986.
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Values are estimates per 100 g for a typical recipe; home and restaurant versions vary. Diets and allergens are worked out from the ingredients of a typical recipe — always check with whoever cooked the dish. Not medical advice. Nutrition data: Me Nutrition dish database v13. How we count →