BEIGNETS

Last recipe from Sandy Daniels hoarde.  I feel better now.  I will go through them once more to make sure I got them all.  I also found some on the cloud.  Sometimes you surprise even yourself.

BEIGNETS

¾ cup water

1 teaspoon yeast

1 teaspoon sugar

½ cup milk

1/3 cup sugar

1 egg lightly beaten

2 Tablespoons melted butter

2 teaspoons vanilla 

½ teaspoon salt

4 cups flour

Vegetable oil for frying

Powdered sugar for dusting

Combine the yeast, 1 teaspoon of sugar and warm water, let stand 10 minutes.  Add milk, sugar, egg, butter, vanilla and salt to the yeast mixture.  Stir.  Add the flour a cup at a time.  Stir, (do not beat) after each addition until no flour is visible.  You may need to use your hand to work in the last cup of flour.  Grease a bowl with butter and transfer the dough to the buttered bowl, turn it over so the top is buttered.  Cover with plastic wrap and chill 1 ½ hours or overnight.

Divide chilled dough in half.  Let half rest 10 minutes at room temperature (cover the other half and chill).  Heavily flour work surface and rolling pin.  Roll dough to ¼” thickness.  Use a scraper to loosen the entire circle of dough.  Slip your hands under the dough and lift dough completely to put air between the dough and the counter.  Lightly roll dough again.  It should be an even 1/8” to ¼” inch thickness.  Cut into 2 ½ inch squares.  Lift dough with a metal spatula and slip into 375° oil.  Dough slides to the bottom but pops up to the surface in about 5 seconds.  The dough will start to puff up in about 10 seconds.  Fry only the number you can handle at one time.  Turn frequently to brown evenly.