It has been a quest… a dream of sorts, really… to create my own beignets.  It stretches back even further than our trip to San Francisco in March 2007 where we had a divine Sunday brunch at Boulette’s Larder at the Ferry Building featuring Garam Masala beignets.  It stretches all the way back to a previous visit when they had Chinese Five Spice beignets.  Crispy, hot, yeasty, without a drop of oil on the napkins lining the serving dish.  In short – deep-fried perfection.

Let’s take a closer look at those:

They just look amazing, don’t they?

Ever since I tasted them, I decided that I wanted to try making beignets, too.  Key acquisitions in order to do this: a stove with good heat control and an oil thermometer.

Every recipe I found for beignets online seemed to be a copy of the exact same recipe.  Either everyone in the world makes beignets the exact same way or there’s some serious plagiarism going on.  To top it off, all these recipes called for seven cups of flour.  Seven cups!?  I’m not feeding an army here.  If two cups of flour will give me buttermilk biscuits for four, I certainly don’t need seven cups for my beignets.

Still, never having made beignets before I didn’t want to start experimenting yet.  Caving in, I measured out my seven cups of flour.

It also contains yeast, water, shortening, sugar, eggs, salt, and evaporated milk.  Theses were summarily mixed together.

Then placed in an oiled bowl and allowed to rise overnight in the refrigerator.  Even at the cold temperatures, the yeast was prodigious and I was getting a little afraid that I would be woken up by the beeping alarm of my refrigerator door once it had been burst open by the overproductive dough.

With Stuart’s help taking pictures, I rolled out the dough.  Here is a point where the recipes diverged ever so slightly.  Some said “roll to 1/8 inch” while others said “roll to 1/4 inch”. 

When it comes to dough, doubling the height is a big different.  I started out with 1/8 on the first third of the dough and opted to cut out rounds rather than squares, just for the heck of it.

I then heated the oil to 180 C.  Even with an induction stove it is really tricky to keep the oil at a steady temperature as once it heats up, it takes a while to cool down even if it is off the burner.

Finally, the temperature was right and I started adding beignets.  The first few bobbed immediately to the surface, when it was my understanding they should stay submerged for at least a little while before coming up for air.  We cooked several batches, testing as we went.  The 1/8 inch beignets seemed to cook too quickly so we tried some at 1/4 inch.  These were a little better.

After several tries, the cooking seemed to come out a little better.  I think that the oil needed to actually be just a little cooler so they didn’t cook too fast.  There were also some experiments with folding the dough several times to create layers but all that seemed to do was create tough beignets.

Here they are, served in the style of Cafe du Monde in New Orleans, a trio under a dusting of powdered sugar.

My conclusion is that the dough itself lacked flavor and complexity.  I think if I had made a starter and let it ferment for a few hours, the beignets might have had more flavor.  Also, a bit more salt would have helped.

Ultimately, though, I’m not sure I’m cut out for deep frying.  Even with the air purifier running all night and the kitchen exhaust fans running the next day, the house has had the lingering odor of donuts.  Maybe I can get an outdoor stove and cook on the balcony?

P.S. Just a note on the Xanga spell check: why are words like “thermometer”, “gay”, and “I’d” not in there?

Thanks to all of you who commented about yesterday’s entry regarding Tawn and I getting married.  I certainly appreciate the support, although more practically the opportunity to do this in Thailand will probably not come around anytime in the next few decades as there isn’t any real friction here to drive social change.  We keep having coups, after all, so gay rights is somewhere further down the list.

When I moved here, our friend Kobfa advised me that my relationship with my in-laws would likely not change and that the way it is now is the way it is likely to remain.  Considering how many people I know whose partners have to be totally closeted with their parents, I appreciate that Tawn can be honest with his parents even if I’m not welcomed into the family fold by my father-in-law.  It could be worse.

Anyhow, changing topics for a moment…

Monday I made a recipe for a peanut butter tart that Tawn had printed from Martha Stewart’s website.  This was originally meant to be his project, but somehow it didn’t get made so before the ingredients went to waste I went ahead and made it.  Things like this happen sometimes…

First, I made a graham cracker crumb crust.  Let me tell you, the familiar graham crackers of my childhood are not stocked at even the best international markets here.  An online search showed that it is pretty easy to make your own graham crackers so I’ll do that next time.  Eventually, I finally found “70% organic” graham crackers from Health Valley at Villa market and used them, even though they didn’t look or feel like the graham crackers I have known.  

These different crackers posed a small chalenge.  The measurements in Martha’s recipe were absurd: Ten 4 3/4-by-2 1/2 inch crackers, which must be the official, universal graham cracker size.  These grapham crackers were different dimensions and were thicker than normal graham crackers, so the cracker crumb-to-butter ratio was off.  Couldn’t the recipe editors just come up with a volume?  Two cups of cracker crumbs, for example.

After dealing with the graham cracker crust debacle, I made a chocolate ganache.  This is shaved or chopped good quality milk chocolate into which boiled cream is poured.  After the chocolate melts, it is whisked together to combine, then whisked over an ice bath until it thickens but is still spreadable.  The ganache is then spread into the crumb crust, forming a chocoalte base.  Refrigerate to set.

The next step is to make the peanut butter filling.  This is peanut butter, cream cheese, and sweetened condensed milk, whipped together.  The recipe used a food processor but mine is in the US still so the trusty Kitchen Aid mixer was enlisted.

Next, 3/4 cup of cream is whipped to soft peaks.

Then the whipped cream is folded into the peanut butter mixture to make it lighter and fluffier.

Finally, the peanut butter-whipped cream mixture is spread over the chocolate base and the tart is allowed to set in the refrigerator for at least three hours.

Meanwhile, I prepared dinner for Tawn.  Dischi volanti pasta with homemade pesto; steamed salt-and-pepper Tasmanian salmon for him, roast beef for me; steamed asparagus with butter and sea salt; a medley of corn, peppers, and peas; and a green salad.  Feeling like we hadn’t had enough of a weekend, I opened a bottle of prosecco.  Why not enjoy some sparkling wine on a Monday?

And, finally, the dessert:

There was supposed to be another dallop of whipped cream on top but I didn’t want to go to the trouble of whipping cream just for two servings.  All in all, the crumb crust wasn’t holding together sufficiently – not enough butter, I think.  The flavor was good and the texture light enough.  I’m a big peanut butter fan but even so, I found the tart to be pretty one-dimensional.  Maybe if the chocolate was a darker chocolate instead of milk chocolate?  Or maybe if a little cardamon or chili pepper was added?