Beignets & Cafe Au Lait

Yesterday was a blissfully cooler day than Saturday and in celebration of the anticipated cooling I made a Classic New Orleans breakfast of beignets and cafe au lait. I started the rich yeast dough the night before. Beignet dough requires a slow cool rise overnight in the refrigerator. Yesterday morning I awoke bright and early to check the dough. It had risen above the rim of its' glass proofing bowl and was making it's way over the edges like a muffin top. The dough was clearly doubled and ready. I punched it down and allowed it to rest for about 15 minutes. I was trying to be as quiet as possible as all my men were still sound asleep. I put a few inches of grape seed oil in to large wide skillet and began to heat the oil to 365. After a spell I went back to the dough which was warming and rising on my wooden pastry counter. It was enough dough to make 60 of the lovely little pillows known as beignets. I proceeded to roll the dough in to a rectangle that was 1/4" thick. I used a bench scraper with a knife edge to carefully cut the dough in to 60 squares that were approximately 2 1/2" each. I carefully dropped the squares in to the oil and they began to brown and billow immediately. Each square pocket bulged with ethereal soft, sweet, goodness. Once each pocket was ready, I scooped them out with my wire spider and in to a brown paper bag filled with powdered sugar. After being bounced a few times and thoroughly dusted with sugar, they were piled high on a large platter lined with paper towels. I fried all 60 and made the cafe au lait before calling the boys. They came rubbing their eyes, barely awake to the table, where a mountain of fresh, sugar dusted, billowy warm "doughnuts", as we call them over here on the West Cost awaited. I had some fruit preserves which I'd made along with hot chocolate from scratch and we feasted until we could not lift another beignet to our lips. It was a delicious treat.