Beignets for breakfast

When the world seems crazy and uncertain, don't you wish you could just shut everything out and hunker down with your family at home, cooking and eating all day?  I do.  And every once in a while, I feel this urge to fry something!  The last time I indulged in this craving to fry, I happily made churros.  This time, we enjoyed some sensational beignets for breakfast courtesy of a recipe from French Country Cooking.

When I think beignets, I naturally think of New Orleans and Cafe du Monde.  While I've had beignets once or twice before, I've never been to New Orleans so I haven't had the pleasure of trying Cafe du Monde's legendary beignets that come loaded with powdered sugar.  Making some at home and enjoying them freshly made and still warm has got to be the next best thing.  

I don't know if it's just me but the thought and act of eating beignets feels like such a treat.  Is it the foreign name that sounds far fancier than merely saying "fritters"?  Or maybe it's because you don't find beignets as easily as you would donuts?  And there is a difference between the two.  

No chicory coffee but I did make cafe au lait (half coffee/half warmed milk) to go with our beignets

I'm no expert but beignets are made with a yeast dough and also resemble choux pastry with its hallow center.  They puff up as the dough hits the hot oil and that deep-frying makes them crisp while the edges have a slight chewiness to it (which I love).  Flavor might not be intense (hence the justification of topping them with plenty of powdered sugar) but you taste the complexity from the yeast and get a little sweetness from the evaporated milk in the dough.  

The hallow center in the beignets lends itself to a filling if you're inclined.  I opted out of the apricot filling in the original recipe and decided to keep my batch plain. However, I couldn't resist making a quick little chocolate sauce - essentially a chocolate ganache I made with equal parts chocolate and water.  It may not be necessary (the beignets are tasty enough on their own with a generous dusting of powdered sugar) but dipping sweet fried things in chocolate is always fun and delicious!

I prepped the dough the night before and we enjoyed beignets for breakfast last Sunday morning.  What a way to start the day!  It was totally worth the effort to fry and I was/am so happy the recipe worked out so well.  My family and I had a fun time indulging in this treat...and we can't wait to do it again!

Churros with vanilla-sugar and chocolate sauce

We went off script this past Sunday and had churros for breakfast!  Real fried churros because I've been feeling this urge to fry something.  Maybe this cold, messy weather is doing weird things to my brain.  Whatever the motivator, I got to make something I've wanted to for a long time (that list of things is so long, by the way).  It was fun and a delicious treat.

Do you know what I think about when I think of churros?  The subway.  Yes, I think of the New York subway system because in the days when I was going to college and working in NYC, I'd be hopping around on the subway and I remember seeing a lady selling churros on one of the number train platforms.  I'm not sure if it was the same lady each time but she'd be carrying a tray with these long sticks of fried churros, calling out: "Churros...Churros..."  The tray was covered with a large dish towel (to give it some protection from the inevitable whirl of dust that comes with the territory) and while I was somewhat enchanted by her and her offering, the reality of buying food from the train platform brought me back to reality and I refrained from ever being a customer.  Maybe if she sold them with a side of chocolate dipping sauce, it would've been different. 

Churros are one of my "fantasy foods", a food that I feel familiar with but, in reality, have rarely eaten. The last time we had a churro was at SeaWorld over a year ago...and sadly, it was not very good.  I vowed to make it at home one day so I can finally claim some familiarity with this food item whose name I love to chant.  And I longed to take advantage of eating some fresh, warm from the fryer.

So it was a struggle to take these pictures and capture my first churro-making moments because I was bent on enjoying these fresh and warm with my family.  I managed well enough.  And we dined on a breakfast of freshly fried churros rolled in vanilla-sugar, with some chocolate sauce on the side.  We all had a bit of a sugar high that morning but what a fun and delicious treat! 

Rolling the warm churros in vanilla-sugar

As you probably know, the dough for the churro is similar to pate a choux in that you mix the dough together over the stove-top.  In researching recipes for this inaugural churro endeavor of mine, I realized that churros can contain eggs or not.  In the end, I settled on Rick Bayless' recipe.  I figured it was a safe bet since Rick Bayless is a very well-respected source for Mexican cuisine.  Secondly, his no-egg recipe is super easy, as you'll see from the instructions to follow.  I think I was very lucky to land on this recipe.  The dough was quick and easy to mix up, as well as easy to handle and fry.  The churros turned out super crunchy, which is most satisfying since that's ultimately what you're after when frying!

Instead of the more traditional coating of cinnamon-sugar, I decided to coat my churros in vanilla-sugar.  It's delicious and you really taste those fresh vanilla beans. And without a doubt, I looked forward to dunking our churros in some chocolate sauce.  I made a water ganache, a chocolate ganache made with water instead of cream.  

I love ganache and I've been thinking about using/substituting with a water version more often.  This has as much to do with convenience as anything because I don't often have cream in the house.  And it might be silly to talk about saving some calories and fat grams when I'm frying up churros for breakfast, but making a sauce or ganache by just melting chocolate with water makes sense because you actually get a deeper chocolate flavor so you're not sacrificing taste.  A water ganache might not look as creamy as one made with cream, or one that has butter added to it, but is still smooth and tastes great!

Almond sponge cake

Despite the hot weather, I keep having a hankering for cake lately.  I want to bake cakes!  I guess they just make me happy.  Plus, I like sitting down with a small slice on a neat plate and giving myself a treat.  As a compromise to the season though, I decided to try a recipe for a light sponge cake and as a little twist, an almond version.  I love plain sponge cakes.  I don't generally need a thick frosting on my cakes (well, unless it's chocolate ganache) and I really enjoy that lightly sweet egg taste.

This is also similar to the angel food cake except we're using both egg whites and egg yolks here.  This is definitely more up my alley since I missed the fat that was missing in the angel food cake.  I also love that smell and flavor of the eggs in the sponge cake.  But like the angel food cake, this sponge cake relies on the eggs for all it's volume and contains no other fats (i.e., no butter or oil). 

I decided to top the almond sponge cake with some almond-flavored whipped cream and toasted almond slices.  Frankly, I liked eating it plain with nothing at all as well.  It's sturdy enough that you can cut a wedge and grab it to go for breakfast.  And being the serious chocolate lover that I am, I also tried it with some dark chocolate sauce but I found that overwhelmed the sponge cake too much so I'm saving the sauce for ice cream.  I also discovered this cake would be the perfect base for strawberry shortcake.  The texture is moist in the center but also surprisingly firm (in a good way).  It would hold up well sliced across into two layers and filled with lightly-sweetened whipped cream and strawberries.  Whipped cream and strawberries would be a great option to have alongside this cake as well.