An Ode to Cafe Du Monde

I hope that at this moment Cafe DuMonde in New Orleans still stands after Hurricane Gustave has hit, I think damage to NEw Orleans was minor but I am not sure yet, but I have made and Homage to all that is NEw Orleans Greatness today; I made home made Beignets. If JD can claim his cajun heritage, so can I! Actually I have been saying for the past few years, that I was going to make Beignets and Hot cocoa for breakfast "Next Weekend" Well guess what?!?! Next weekend finally came and I made Beignets, and Uh...THEY WERE AWESOME!


The best part about this, is I finally used the dough hook on my Kitchen Aid Mixer, OMG! I might just have to make bread, it was so easy to do! Here they are after they pull away from the sides of the bowl. THen all I had to do was to take them out, roll them out and cut them into small rectangles. BTW. I did not cook all of these, I did not even cook half of these I need to find a way to half this recipe.


Here they are frying up, they cook so fast that I needed Cole to help finish making the cocoa so I did not burn these.

I did put a lot of powdered sugar on them, but only Matt made the huge mess I had to clean up!

Well here is the recipe I used and I have added the few tweaks to it, to make it more my recipe, I think next time I might try another zest like lemon or lime and maybe make a lemon glaze to go on a few of them, YUM!

*****Oh Yeah I forgot the MOST important thing I learned from this entire experience.... YOU MUST ALWAYS CRACK YOUR EGGS ONE AT A TIME INTO ANOTHER BOWL BEFORE CRACKING THEM INTO YOUR OTHER INGREDIENTS OR YOU TOO COULD LOOSE 2 PACKETS OF YEAST AND 4 EGGS! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I did not crack but one rotten egg out of my new carton of eggs, I had 2 rotten eggs in my batch, luckily I had another carton of eggs in my fridge to go, although I bought both cartons at the same time UGH!*****

Ingredients:

1 envelope active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup evaporated milk
7 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup shortening, softened
2 TBS. Vanilla
1 TBS. of orange zest
oil for deep frying ( I used Canola)
LOTS of powdered sugar

Preparation:

In large bowl, sprinkle yeast over the warm water; stir to dissolve and let stand for 5 minutes. Add sugar, salt, beaten eggs, and evaporated milk. Whisk or use electric mixer to blend thoroughly. Add 4 cups of the flour; beat until smooth. Add shortening; gradually blend in remaining flour. Cover with plastic wrap and chill at least 4 hours or overnight. Roll out on floured board to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut into 2 1/2 to 3-inch squares. Deep fry at 360° for 2 to 3 minutes until lightly browned on both sides. Drain on paper towels and sprinkle generously with powdered sugar.