When you think about Mardi Gras you think about New Orleans, and when you think about New Orleans you think about beignets! The word beignet refers to fried dough but depending on the country the pastry can vary. They can be square or round, savory or sweet, fruit-filled or plain dough. In New Orleans they are the natural accompaniment to your café au lait and they come piping hot in groups of three on a plate with a heap of powdered sugar on top.
Mardi Gras is just around the corner, and if you can't be in New Orleans, you may as well celebrate at home with these delicious treats.
Unfortunately for vegans, the dough for traditional beignets contains milk and eggs. But these two ingredients have simple substitutes, making for a very easily veganizable recipe.
This dough makes a LOT of beignets, so keep that in mind and cut the ingredients in half if you want less (but really, do you?).
looks good… just one question. 1/4 WHAT of coconut oil?
http://plantmade.me/ Vi Zahajszky
Hi Jasleen, It’s 1/4 cup. Thanks for catching that. We’ve fixed the typo.
Stacy
Really, awesomely heavenly and delicious! Some tips from my experience with this recipe, which worked very well for my first time ever making beignets:
-Use the blending attachment for the stand mixer, not the dough hook, but don’t expect to get the dough entirely blended that way. When it’s mostly together and starting to crawl up the attachment, pour the dough onto a floured countertop, scrape the extra dough off the mixer blade and knead for a bit until everything is incorporated.
-Cut the rolled-out dough using a rolling pizza cutter – works brilliantly!
-Thicker dough (usually from the middle) won’t expand as well as the thinner (edge) pieces.
-I used a 1/4″+ of oil in a large cast iron skillet (topping up as needed) and turned the beignets to brown them. It didn’t come close to needing a quart.
-Don’t let it get too hot!
-Be prepared to have the people you live with coerce you in every way they can think of to make these babies on a regular basis – daily, if possible.
http://Www.cakesbyrobynn.blogspot.com Robynn
I’m used to making them the regular way. With evaporated milk and such. However, I’m going to try this and instead of coconut products I’m going to try vanilla almond milk. I usually put vanilla extract in them anyways. It gives a nice hint. You can also take out 1/2 cup of flour and put in cocoa powder. Mmmmm! Can’t wait to try them. I find that letting the dough rest overnight covered in the fridge really puffs them up!
http://thursdayswithwanda.wordpress.com Wanda
Those look like they have the perfect amount of fluffyness! I’ve also made vegan donuts with flaxseeds as an egg replacer, and they work perfectly as well. I like the added richness of the coconut milk though.
