Beignets

I first had beignets in New Orleans at the famous Cafe Du Monde. If you're ever in New Orleans, you have to have the Beignets with the Cafe Au Lait. Their coffee is a brew of coffee with chicory, which I think is a kind of nut, but I could be wrong.

In any case, the beignets were incredible! They were delicious, light and fried. What's not to love? Ever after, no beignet I had elsewhere could measure up. So I was very intrigued when I saw that you can make beignets at home by frying up some brioche dough. I found this in the book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day (my new favorite book!).

So yesterday, I made some brioche dough to chill overnight in the fridge. This morning, hubby ground up some raw sugar in our mortar and pestle to make powdered sugar while I rolled out a small amount of dough and cut them into 2 inch squares. While letting the squares rise and rest for 20 minutes (they didn't rise very much), I heated up oil in my wok. I was a little worried that the beignets wouldn't come out fluffy since they didn't rise much, but after slipping them into the hot oil, they puffed up nicely! I let them lightly brown on each side before draining and sprinkling with the powdered sugar and serving.

They were better than most I've ever had, though probably still not as good as Cafe Du Monde's! Hubby approved of this new food experiment and whole-heartedly thinks I should make more. Success! I would post pictures, but we ate them all. :-(

You can find the brioche dough recipe here:
http://www.artisanbreadinfive.com/2008/09/24/brioche-dough-recipe-and-all-of-its-wonderful-uses
The post also includes links to other goody bread yummies you can make with brioche dough.