Beignets from The Princess and the Frog

I don't want to be one of those people with a long story before the recipe so.....

1 ½ cup warm water

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

1 cup evaporated milk

2 rounded teaspoons of insta yeast

6 ½ cups of flour

¼ cup shortening

Enough oil to fry in

Powdered sugar to pile on top

1. Combine eggs, evaporated milk, and salt and beat until well mixed.
2. Add water.
3. Sift insta yeast into flour.
4. Add 3 cups of flour mixture into egg mixture.
5. Add shortening and continue to mix.
6. Switch to a dough hook and add the rest of the flour mixture.
7. Once dough forms a ball, knead on a floured counter.
8. Grease a bowl and put dough in bowl. Cover with saran wrap or a damp towel and let rise in a warm place. It should take about 2 hours to double in size, but check at 1 1/12 hours.
9. Sprinkle counter with flour and roll out dough to ¼ inch thick or so.
10. Cut into squares about 2 inches. If you roll like me, there will be a lot of non-squares around the edge and that's fine.
11. Heat oil in Dutch oven or open deep fryer to 350 degrees F.
12. Fry the squares a few minutes on each side until puffy and brown. Then remove with tongs or slotted spoon and let drain on paper towel lined baking sheet.
13. Pile high with powdered sugar and enjoy!

*If you do not have insta yeast but do have active yeast, then start by placing yeast in the warm water with ½ cup sugar. Add when you add the water.

My daughter Tori decided she wanted to make food from different Disney movies and then eat the food while watching the movie, mainly because she wanted these beignets. We both love Princess and the Frog. I always say if I was a princess, I would be Tiana. Tori loves the music and the animation. So, when I agreed to do this project with her, this was our first choice.

I had never made beignets before. The dough was a little trickier and stickier than I thought it would be. We over worked the dough and they didn't come out quite as fluffy and soft as I wanted, but they were still good! The best part was Tori and I had a great time making them. She took a nice break to play Roblox while we waited for it to rise.

We used our deep fryer to cook them, just removed the baskets and used tongs. I used a small strainer and a slightly larger bowl to set it in to “sift” the powdered sugar on top of the beignets. Tori did a tray of them and powdered sugar got everywhere, which she thought was funny. Honestly, I only got slightly less covered in powdered sugar.