These are incredible. Flavorful with some nice color and density provided by the sweet potato. Let’s go.
Ingredients
Beignet part:
- 1 cup beer (I used a pretty standard Texas beer, don’t need to go too fancy here)
- 1 cup flour
- 2 tablespoons barely melted butter. Either melt it on a double boiler or just slightly in the microwave
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- If you don’t have baking powder, you can make some at home if you have baking soda and cream of tartar. Two parts cream of tartar for every one part baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 egg white
- Frying oil
Sweet Potato part:
- 1 medium sweet potato
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 1/3 cup brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/8 cup cream cheese
- 1/8 cup whipping cream
Finishing Dust
- 2 tablespoons powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg
This isn’t as much work as the ingredients list would suggest.
First, make the batter. Put all of the beignet ingredients into a mixing bowl and combine. Once combined, slowly pour in the one cup of beer (while stirring) as well as the butter (while still stirring). Once all of those ingredients are combined, store this in the fridge. This needs to rest for about 1 hour.
Next, dice the sweet potato and drop in to a pot of boiling salted water till they’re soft. Once soft, put into a larger mixing bowl and smash just as you would mashed potatoes. While smashing, include the butter, cinnamon, salt, brown sugar, and nutmeg. Once they’re well combined put this in the fridge or freezer to cool. If you have more than 30 minutes till your beignet mix has cooled, then put it in the fridge, less than 30, then use the freezer.
While you wait, create the dust by combining all of the ingredients and put in a sifter for later use. Also, go ahead and pull out your egg white and whip it until you can form stiff peaks. Finally, put a pot on the stove and get a good deep layer of oil. If you have it, go for a good 4 inches of oil. Get this to medium high heat.
Ok time for the fun part. Pull out the sweet potatoes and drop in the cream cheese and the whipping cream and mix well. Then, pull out the beignet mix and fold in the egg white. Once that’s combined, slowly mix (spoonful by spoonful) the sweet potato mixture into the beignet mix. Get them combined and with a nice orange hue.
Using a large spoon, slowly spoon the batter into the hot frying oil. Think of this like a pancake where you create the “beignet” by layering the batter ontop of itself and as it hits the oil it forms one singular body. I usually aim for about a 2 inch diameter.
As this cooks it will get a great brown color with a very slight roasted sweet potato coloring. Using a slotted spoon remove and hit with the dust. Rinse, wash, repeat.
Serve with vanilla ice cream to take it over to the top.