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Now you can enjoy New Orleans-Style Beignets without leaving the comfort of your home! If you’ve never enjoyed these soft and pillowy fried doughnuts before, you’re in for a treat. Because this is the best fried beignet recipe! Serve beignets warm, with plenty of powdered sugar!
Copycat Café du Monde Beignets
We’re heading to New Orleans for vacation today and I couldn’t be more excited to chill out in the big easy! Give me all the fried dough, boozy iced coffees, and gumbo, please and thank you!
But before we head to the airport, I’m popping in to share my favorite deep fried beignets recipe with you. Aka copycat Café du Monde beignets, which are the best in New Orleans.
They fry up crispy, chewy, and golden brown! And you serve the beignets warm, covered in powdered sugar, with piping hot coffee. Sweet enough to be dessert but we love making these for breakfast or brunch!
What is a Beignet?
To put it simply, beignets are square shaped pieces of dough that are deep fried and generously sprinkled with confectioners sugar.
- Leftovers taste ok at room temperature, but they don’t hold up well over time.
- The word beignet is French, and translates to fried dough or fritter.
- Unlike traditional doughnuts, they have a unique square shape.
- Texture wise, they’re crispy on the outside, with an airy pillowy soft interior.
- When it comes to taste, they’re not overly sweet. Which is why they’re served covered in lots and lots of powdered sugar.
- Best served hot, with a cafe au lait or cup of coffee.
- You’ll need a deep fry thermometer for this recipe. Because if your hot oil temperature is off, your fried dough will be too. This is the candy thermometer I use, and I love it. It costs me less than 10 bucks, and I’ve probably used it over a hundred times!
- To proof the yeast mixture, your warm water should be between 110 and 115 degrees (F). If the water is too hot, it will kill the yeast cells, and if it’s too cold, the yeast will remain dormant and the dough won’t rise.
- This recipe requires bread flour. Bread flour is a high-gluten flour that has a tiny amount of barley flour and vitamin C added. The barley flour helps the yeast activate. The vitamin C increases the elasticity of the gluten and its ability to retain gas as the dough rises.
- The dough will double in size as it rests. Refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours so it has time to properly develop.
- Fry the dough working in batches. If you crowd the oil, the beignets won’t get crispy or golden brown.
How to Serve Beignets
- As soon as you see the fried dough has achieved a golden brown color, remove them from the oil.
- Transfer them to a paper towel lined baking sheet to absorb some of the oil.
- Once cool enough to handle, transfer them to a large platter.
- Cover with powdered sugar and serve beignets warm!
As mentioned a few times earlier, I don’t suggest saving these for a future use. They get soggy after a few hours. So they’re best eaten right after making!
More Beignet Recipes:
If you can’t make it to New Orleans this year to enjoy cripsy golden brown fried dough… give it a try at home! Full step-by-step recipe video in the recipe card below!
New Orleans-Style Beignets
Ingredients
- 1 and 1/2 cups warm water, between 110 and 115 degrees (F)
- 2/3 cup granulated sugar
- 2 and 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 cup evaporated milk
- 2 and 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 7 cups bread flour
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 4 cups peanut oil, for deep frying
- 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
Instructions
- In a medium-size bowl, add the warm water, sugar, and yeast and whisk well to combine. Sit aside for about 10 minutes, or until the mixture has bubbled up and become foamy.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the eggs until smooth. Beat in the vanilla and evaporated milk. Beat in 3 and 1/2 cups of the flour until smooth. Turn the mixer to low speed and slowly pour in the yeast mixture (careful here – this mixture can splash up if added to quickly!); beat until smooth. Add in the butter and beat until incorporated. Finally, beat in the remaining 3 and 1/2 cups of flour and salt. Beat until dough is smooth and cohesive; about 2 minutes. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours, or up to 24 hours.
- Line a large rimmed baking sheet with three layers of paper towels, set aside.
- In a large enameled cast-iron pan, heat 4-inches of oil to 360 degrees (F). Remove the dough from the refrigerator. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out into a 1/4-inch thick rectangle. Cut the dough into 2 and 1/2-inch squares.
- In batches, fry the dough until they puff up and are golden brown in color, about 1 minute. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the beignets to the prepared baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough.
- Dust with powdered sugar and serve at once!
How do you handle leftovers? I know they should be eaten as soon as they’re fried, but what if you have leftovers? Can they be frozen and reheated (baked not microwaved) or will that be too gross? Or can you freeze them after cutting them out and fry them as needed?
I have made these many times and always with great results. That said I always have to use more flour as the dough is still too tacky to handle after just 875g (7c). I usually end up using another 50-75g plus more for kneading, rolling, and proofing later. About 1k or 8c and the crumb is still very light and airy, slightly crispy exterior, and with just a little bite(chewiness) to them.
Great recipe! Really easy to make. I recommend putting it in a warmer area if you don’t have time for it to be in the fridge overnight. Will definitely be making these again!
The work and the mess were absolutely worth it! I had promised my family beignets on Christmas morning, made with the mix I bought at Cafe du Monde last fall. Turned out the shelf life on that mix is shorter than I realized, and I needed to find a from-scratch recipe. This one turned out amazing, even when cooked in stages: I fried up half the dough the morning after mixing it, then the next day I rolled and cut the other half, setting the squares between sheets of parchment in a baking dish for transport to the in-laws’. I wish I’d greased the parchment, the dough stuck a bit, but cooking some of the squares that day and some the next – now three days after making the dough – still worked fine. I will absolutely be making this again next time I have a crowd to enjoy it.
This recipe is a keeper for sure. It’s perfect. I definitely recommend proofing the dough overnight in the fridge because in my experience it does make them taste even better. These donuts are pillowy, soft, delicious and just perfect. I have had beignets at Cafe du Monde and these taste the same. We dipped our in raspberry jam. Thank you for such an amazing recipe!
Making these with some trepidation — never seen a yeast dough recipe that didn’t include time for a rise, but your comments suggest it’s not an issue 🙂
Can you cook them in a air fryer?
I wouldn’t think that an air fryer (really just a countertop-sized convection oven) would make the beignets puff up like they do in oil. But worth a try!
WOW WOW WOW! Making them again tonight! They are SO GOOD and so easy to make! When I make a batch, my husband and children ride around our community and hand them out. Some with powdered sugar and some with donut glaze! Some me of the best desserts I’ve ever made. Thank you for this recipe!
These came out perfect. I made a 1.5x recipe to use up the 12oz can of condensed milk that i had purchased and let sit overnight in the fridge. Be warned! the dough will continue to proof a bit in the refrigerator! Came out lovely all the same.
Austin it’s not condensed milk it’s evaporated milk your recipe must have been really sweet there’s a difference between these kinds of milk, consistency and sweetener.
Condensed and evaporated milk are the same thing (at least in my family). The sweetened form of condensed milk is actually labeled “sweetened condensed milk”.
While you may be correct, in practice, any recipe that calls for condensed milk likely means sweetened. So *effectively* not the same.
This recipe was honestly really easy to follow and the result was one of the best things i’ve ever made :DD made the mistake of using the dough hook, so really be sure to use the paddle or whisk on a mixer (i used a hand mixer), then switch to hooks if needed. we got the oil to the exact temp needed but a few beignets in, we stopped monitoring and it still turned out pretty well! i dont have peanut oil but maybe one of these days i can taste what that would be like :DD lastly! our grocery had no confectioner’s sugar (just my luck), but thoroughly blended sugar makes a good sub. a great recipe! i’ll be sure to try it during christmas when more people are over
You can make your own confectioner’s sugar by putting regular white sugar in a blender with a bit of corn starch (I’m sure there’s a recipe somewhere) and pulverizing it. The corn starch keeps the sugar from clumping.