I didn't expect my first cooking in 2018 was making Beignets. Santa J brought me a box of Beignet mix by Cafe du Monde, the original French market coffee stand in New Orleans since 1862. Beignet, or French doughnuts or fried fritters, "brought to Louisiana by the Acadians" according to the cafe. I have heard and seen Beignets although I don't remember if I have eaten them before. J was sure that he has yet had them. Trying something new is fun as always.
Our question was when we try it. In the morning of New Year's Day, we didn't have really anything for breakfast. I, as a Japanese, would like to relax on the most important day of the year without heavy cooking and dishing. Meanwhile, I would like to try something new, like Beignets, to begin the new year. My main concern was that Beignets are doughnuts, so they require deep-frying. Honestly, I don't like to deep-fry anything. I basically avoid it. This time there was no way to make Beignets with the mix without deep-frying. However, the idea of deep-frying on the New Year's Day sounded totally absurd for me. I guess J wouldn't see how serious conflicts were that I was dealing with at that time. Anyway, in short, Beignets won. Making Beignets by following the instructions on the box was easy. The box didn't specify how to handle the dough. I folded the dough a couple of times without kneading too much. The dough wasn't sticky and was easy to handle.
Cafe de Monde's Beignet is a square piece of dough, fried and covered with powdered sugar. I adapted the tradition. The controversial deep-frying wasn't too terrible actually. Since the dough was pretty dry and I used a deep pan, any oil didn't jump to the stove top. Cleaning was a piece of cake.
My Beignets beautifully golden and puffed up. They tasted like a plain doughnut. The dough itself didn't have any flavor other than simple flour. It wasn't sweet at all. The power sugar topping was necessary. Or, cinnamon sugar might be nice although it's not traditional.
The best friend of doughnut is coffee, of course. We had Beignets with French press coffee. Coffee with a lot of hot milk, or coffee au lait was mine.
My Beignets were puffy and there was a hollow inside. J said we could fill inside with something. A wonderful idea popped in my head. Make Boston cream pie doughnuts! It was still on New Year's Day, but I made homemade custard cream and dark chocolate glaze quickly. The leftover Beignets turned to Boston cream pie Beignets in the afternoon. They tasted just like what they were supposed to be.
Beignet project brought me a lot of fun after all. Maybe 2018 will be a year to push myself beyond my limits.
