Recipes—
Breakfast or Dessert
Rapidmix Fast-Night Cakes (or another word for Beignets)
Ingredients:
3 ¾ to 4 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
½ tsp. salt
1 package active dry yeast
¼ cup butter, softened (1/2 stick, let sit in a warm place, don’t microwave)
1 cup very hot tap water
1 egg (at room temperature)
Salad oil
Directions:
1. In the large bowl of a stand mixer, thoroughly combine 1 ¼ cup flour, sugar, salt, and undissolved yeast. Add softened butter.
2. Gradually add very hot tap water to dry ingredients and beat 2 minutes with mixer at medium speed, scraping bowl occasionally.
3. Add egg and ½ cup flour, or enough flour to make a thick batter. Beat at high speed two minutes, scraping bowl occasionally.
4. Stir in enough flour to make a soft dough (sides are clean and you could touch without
coming away sticky). Cover; let dough rise in warm place free from draft until doubled,
about 1 hour.
5. Turn dough onto lightly floured board; knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 to 10
minutes. Roll out to make an 8x16” rectangle. Cut into 2” squares. Cut a slit about ¼”
deep (almost through the dough) in the top of each square. Place on ungreased baking
sheets. Cover; let rise in warm place free for draft until doubled, about 45 minutes.
6. Fry in dep hot salad oil (375 degrees) until golden brown on both sides. Drain on paper
towels. If desired, dip warm doughnuts in sugar with a little cinnamon added. Makes 32
doughnuts.
7. Other options include—cover with powdered sugar a la Café du Monde or spoon
homemade caramel sauce.
8. All are heaven!
Note: This recipe comes from the cookbook, Homemade Bread, Edited by Nell B. Nichols, published by Farm Journal magazine and Doubleday & Company in 1969. I hate to admit this, but I sort of stole the book from my mother when I was in high school. I liked baking difficult/interesting breads and she doesn't, but that's no excuse.
At the same time, I'm not mentioning that I have the book since I've been working my way through trying every delicious recipe in the book. I keep notes on each one and I first made these in 1988 with the conclusion, "Delicious!"
Now, don't tell Mama.