While I was making the bi-weekly fried dough breakfast that my daughter adores, it dawned on me today that I’ve been making beignets off and on for years now. Spell checker still doesn’t like that word, and I have to double check every time I type it. “I” before “E” and the French…
I digress.
Since I’ve been making them for a while, I’ve got a few fast tricks that I use that makes prep and cleanup super, SUPER fast. If you’ve ever thought about making them (or have made them and regret the mess you made and haven’t since) hopefully these tips/tricks should help you out. I’m not going to cover all the steps – the box has those, I’ll try to highlight my speed tricks.
Note: While I have gotten WAY more proficient in the kitchen, I’m still using the Cafe Du Monde box mix. I haven’t tried all the homemade recipes (yet), I just happen to have the box mix down to a science, and there’s a LOT of ingredients in the homemade that I haven’t purchased yet. In short, I’m lazy and usually this a morning process.
Step 1:
Buy the Box Mix at the store or order it online. (Duh) Kroger here carries it locally. Also buy a candy thermometer if you want to go pro or plan on making them with some regularity. Candy thermometer also has other multiple uses in the kitchen.
Step 2:
Throw on some Mickey Baker (or any other suitable twangy guitar music). Make some espresso/coffee, you’ll be handling hot oil and need to be awake (and careful).
Step 3:
Decide if you need a full batch or a half batch. Full batch calls for 2 cups of mix and 7 ounces of water. If you’re trying this for the first time, try a half batch. A half batch will be 1 cup of mix and 3.5 ounces of water (yay math!). Make sure you try to get as close to 3.5 oz as possible. The more experience you have making them, you can be a little “off” and still compensate with mix. Half batch is usually good for one person. Full batch can also be for one person that eats a lot.
Step 4:
Warm up your oil. At this point I use a really deep pan, and a WHOLE bottle of Crisco Canola oil (1.5qt). I use this oil over and over for beingets specifically until it gets nasty – see steps for straining the gunk out at step 13. If you don’t plan on reusing it, make sure you pour the box recommended 1 or 2 inches of oil. The more oil you use, the more consistent the heat transfer is (and more consistently they cook). Here is also where the candy thermometer comes in. They recommend 370 degrees, and it’s extremely hard to measure that without a thermometer. If the oil is too cool, it takes longer to cook and they get harder from overcooking. Too hot and they get flash fried and burned within a matter of seconds (and you risk a house fire). Thermometer = good investment.
Step 5:
Put on the rubber/latex gloves. GLOVES? Yes, gloves. I buy the 100 pack at the store, they’re pretty useful all over the house when there’s something nasty that needs to be done and my dainty guitar playing fingers need protection (cue tiny violins). The dough mix and water get really sticky. REALLY sticky. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be a perfect water to mix ratio that makes it perfectly not-sticky, but in my experience (years), gloves keep you from getting sticky dough EVERYWHERE. The first time I made beingets, there was a sink full of dirty/dough-sticky plates, pans and utensils and doughy fingerprints EVERYWHERE. Cheater? Yes. Lazy? Yes, we have covered that.
Step 6:
Sprinkle some drops of water on your countertop (stay with me now). Tear off a small sheet of saran wrap (this becomes your prep surface) and lay it on the water droplets. The water makes the saran wrap stick to the counter. (Thanks go specifically to my ex-wife who taught me that one)
Step 7:
Sprinkle some flour on the saran wrap. Transfer your dough from the bowl to the saran wrap. (Make sure to put soapy water in your bowl so the leftover sticky mix doesn’t turn to concrete.) Your oil should still be heating up (it takes a while). Sprinkle more flour on the dough and push it down flat with your hand. The box recommends using a roller – and that’s good – but I don’t use one, it’s a pain to clean. I flatten it by hand until it’s about the recommended 1/8th inch (or so, I’ve never exactly measured it). The point of using a roller is to get out all the air bubbles. If you don’t use a roller your beignets can puff up in the middle. They don’t look as “pretty”. I go for speed/ease-of-cleanup. Pick your battles. At this point I’ve already removed the gloves (after flour).
Step 8:
Use a pizza cutter to cut your dough into squares. You can cut other fancy shapes (go you!), but the pizza roller is FAST and nothing sticks to it. I used to use the flat side of a butter knife, but it got messy.
Step 9:
Once the oil has warmed up, lay them in (carefully, remember this is boiling oil). For a half batch, I will typically throw them all in one by one. You’ll see the temp drop down (if you were smart enough to buy the thermometer) to about 340 or so, that’s fine. A full batch will suffer from “pan crowding” where the temperature drops too low, and you have to stop halfway through to let the oil heat back up. Throw away your saran wrap while they are cooking. Even with a full half batch, they will cook FAST. If you try to cook them to the same color you’ve seen them at Cafe Du Monde, you will probably have a burnt beignet. I suspect that they use their oil for quite a while and have hundreds of batches of beignets going through it. Fresh oil will have a different heat retention than well used oil. I tend to let them cook for about 2-3 minutes on one side, then flip them using tongs. Have a plate with paper towels ready for removal.
Step 10:
After less than probably 5-6 minutes, they’ll be done and you can remove them one by one onto your plate.
Step 11:
Using either a cake duster or a strainer (my favorite), pour your powdered sugar into it. Dust your beignets. I know, you’re saying, “But the ones in NOLA are COVERED in PILES of SUGAR!”. Yes, they are. This is a home process. You can put sugar however you like but you will be blowing through BAGS of powdered sugar at a time, and you’ll have huge piles of sugar on the plate when all the beignets are gone. Kind of a waste. I did it when I started, and it was fun for a while, then reality set in.
Blurry – sorry:
Step 12:
Turn off the burner that your oil is sitting on. Serve the beignets. Enjoy undeserved compliments for a process that a child could follow (as long as you didn’t burn yourself anywhere in the process).
Step 13:
Here’s the cleanup of the oil that’s fast and easy. If you plan on reusing your oil, read on. If you don’t plan on reusing it, dispose of it in a manner that is approved by your local city authority.
Since I reuse the oil, I originally bought a 100 pack of cone disposable coffee filters. Once the oil gets cool, get a funnel, put the coffee filter in the funnel and pour the oil through it into your original oil bottle. I typically mark the bottle with a sharpie so my other cooking endeavors don’t start tasting like beignets. This tends to take a while since oil kind of clogs up the filter and several passes have to be made.
Since I went pro (and have numerous coffee making gadgets all over my house), I have a reusable mesh coffee filter that serves the same purpose. I think you can pick those up at your local grocery store, I think that’s where I got mine. I don’t recommend really using this if you actually make coffee with it – I don’t own a drip coffee machine, so it doesn’t matter to me. Straining your oil will get out all the cooked flour and dough particles that didn’t stick to the beignets themselves and make your oil last longer. With the reusable mesh, the oil takes only one pass to strain (less than 3 minutes for a 1.5L bottle.)
So, there’s my steps for fast and easy prep cleanup. To tally the (minimal) dirty utensils:
Bowl
Spoon (mixing dough)
Pizza Cutter
Cooking Pan/Pot
Roller (optional)
Strainer (or powdered sugar duster)
Funnel
Tongs
Mesh Coffee Filter (optional)
Plate that you served the beignets on
Not bad! Enjoy!