We had a great breakfast at the beach this week, and to treat our gaggle of children, we ordered a starter of beignets. What was served, however, was not a beignet. Instead, it was like a crouton that tasted faintly of calamari. The children didn’t mind, and they doused the little dough bits with whipped cream and syrup. (That also seemed odd, and not how they do it at Cafe du Monde.)
Have you ever had a tasting experience that was so disgusting that you immediately had to go have the meal or drink or whatever, only well prepared, to erase the bad taste from your mouth?
Well, that’s how we felt about these so-called beignets. And lucky for us, we had a box of Cafe du Monde beignet mix unopened in the pantry.
It took us about one minute to mix up the batter and roll it out. It was a little trickier to cut the dough; our beignets were not perfectly shaped, that’s for sure.
Then we fried them in vegetable oil in a shallow pan. We used our candy thermometer to check the oil temperature.
The directions say to flip them as they cook and puff up. We thought ours were not as puffy as they should be, and we’ll be more gentle with the dough next time.
When they were done, we drained them for a minute on paper towels and then doused them with powdered sugar. We knew enough from our trip to Louisiana to use quite a bit of powdered sugar, enough to make a bit of a sugar storm as you lift the beignet from plate to mouth.
Now, these were decent beignets. We no longer had the bad taste in our mouth from the day before.
All that was missing was the chicory coffee.
1 response so far ↓
Rachel // May 28, 2008 at 10:40 pm |
I remember the last Philly apartment where I lived alone – right in the middle of an Italian neighborhood in deep South Philly. I had just set up my first computer, and because I was single, childless, and gainfully employed (and paid only $400 monthly for a two-story 1-bedroom apt), I was flush with cash. One of the very first things I purchased on a regular basis were cans of CdM chicory coffee and boxes of beignets. That is, until I discovered that the Asian markets carried the coffee.
Seeing that box brought back some memories!