Small Batch Vanilla Beignets with Olive Nation

(this post contains affiliate links)

30-yr old becomes first-time ✨ influencer ✨

It may surprise some of you to know that I’ve never been paid to push products before—a seemingly natural extension of pushing donuts.

However, there’s a simple explanation.

I’ve pitched my little butt off for years, mainly to local business owners. It usually went a little something like “I make donuts and people buy them but I don’t have a place to sell them. If I sell them here in your store people will come to your store.” Nothing fancy, just some good old fashioned quid pro quo.

But never have I ever pitched a brand for a partnership. I just didn’t know what to say and I was too busy making donuts to look up what to say. So when Olive Nation, a business whose products I’ve been using for years, reached out to me to partner up I thought to myself “ah yes, make them come to you, your plan all along.”

Actually I thought “wow that’s lucky” (the donuts above are from 2018 and made with their blackberry extract)

I first encountered Olive Nation via an Amazon search for lavender extract. I had no experience with lavender extracts and took a chance on one.

I was so impressed that I went on to accumulate Olive Nation’s coconut, pineapple, mango, watermelon, hazelnut, and the aforementioned blackberry extracts as well. It truly was a no-brainer to partner up with Olive Nation to create something with their vanilla products. Honestly, I’m surprised they didn’t send me an “Ask me about my Olive Nation extracts” t-shirt to wear around town.

It also didn’t hurt that they told me to look through all their products and pick the ones I’d like to use for my post. “Just send us a list of what you’d like.” I metaphorically laced up my supermarket-sweeps sneakers and sped through the pages of options.

How is a girl to choose? Well I had an idea of what I was after.

I recently had a follow-up experience with beignets that didn’t live up to the original and knew I needed to create my own recipe if I hoped to ever come close to my magical first experience.

Back to early 2013, I helped my sister move across the country from Orlando to LA. The first leg of trip landed us in New Orleans. We woke up around dawn the next day and walked through the eerily quiet streets (the previous night was Fat Tuesday) to get beignets.

I remember ordering a coffee and two orders of beignets. My sister said “and another coffee.” I turned to her, knowing the assumption she had made, and said “both those orders of donuts are for me.” I didn’t know much about myself at 22 but I had a deep understanding of my predilection for hot fried donuts. Seeing the look of seriousness on my face, Sarah ordered a third bag of donuts.

It’s impossible to quantify the impression I got from the first bite. It was incredible. And hence the underwhelming subsequent experiences with them.

So when I decided to develop a beignet recipe I thought if I just got anywhere near that first bite, it would be a success.

Let’s chat beignets, AKA the official state donut of Louisiana. They’re made of a not-sweet dough that’s fried to order, immediately tossed in a mountain of powdered sugar, and handed to you to eat hot which makes it nearly impossible to avoid inhaling the powdered sugar as you delicately take your first bites.

A bit’o’history:

“French settlers brought beignets with them as they migrated to the eastern coast of Canada, a region called Acadia, in the 17th century. Thousands of Acadians endured a forced migration as the British took control of the region a hundred years later. Many Acadians settled in Louisiana, where their descendants became known as Cajuns. Acadians brought their cuisine, as well as their language, with them as they migrated south.” (https://www.nationalgeographic.org/media/beignets/)

But I didn’t just want to make any old beignets—I wanted to be sure that if these were going to be your first experience that they would leave a similarly magical impression.

So I did you one better with the addition of two types of vanilla (an extract in the dough and a vanilla powder mixed with the powdered sugar).

This batch is SMALL because I wanted it to be something you and your friend or partner could whip up and enjoy without a pile of leftovers—when it comes to beignets be sure to eat them all as hot and fresh as possible, leftover donuts should be given a viking funeral instead of being saved for another day.

Small Batch Vanilla Beignets with Olive Nation— from Orlandough By Liz Doerr

Yield: 12 small beignets (half size of normal)

You’ll need:

• To read through this entire recipe before you start.

• Whisk

• Stand Mixer with dough hook attachment

• a big bowl for tossing the donuts in the sugar

• Pizza cutter or bench scraper

• Spatula

• Rolling Pin (but can make due without it)

• Chopsticks for flipping donuts

• 4 inch deep pan to fry in (I use cast-iron)

• Instant read thermometer

• Kitchen Spider to get donuts out of the oil
  

Ingredients:

Donuts: Vanilla Beignets

• 1 cup King Arthur All Purpose Flour or Store-brand bread flour + more for dusting/rolling out beignets

• 1 tsp instant dry active yeast (half a package)

• 1/2 tsp + 1/8 tsp granulated sugar

• 1/8 tsp baking soda

• 1/8 tsp salt

• 1/2 cup Evaporated Milk (1:1 swap with non-dairy milk works great!)

• 1 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar

• 1 tsp Olive Nation 4 x Fold Vanilla Extract (2oz bottle is enough for multiple batches)

• 1 Recipe Vanilla Powdered Sugar

• Oil safe for frying (1 quart should be enough depending on the size of the frying pot/pan you’re using)

  • The amount of oil you need will depend on the size of pan you’re using. I use pure corn oil . Canola is a good option too. But check your oil’s smoke point before you purchase. You want it to be about 425-450 F just to be safe

Method:

1. Mix the vanilla powdered sugar: see recipe below.

2. Mix the dry ingredients: in the bowl of a stand mixer combine your flour, sugar, yeast, baking soda, and salt. Whisk to combine.
   

3. Mix the dough: Add to the bowl the evaporated milk, apple cider vinegar, and vanilla extract. Using the dough hook attachment, mix the dough for 2 minutes on medium speed—start low until it’s combined, then you can increase it to medium.
   

4. Rise the dough: Cover your bowl with a damp kitchen towel or plastic wrap and allow it to rest in a warm, draft-feel location and double in size (about one hour).

5. While the dough is rising: set your frying pan on the stove top and add in about 3 inches of oil. You will be frying the beignets as soon as they’re cut (no second rise) so you want the oil ready to turn on and heat up while you’re cutting them.
   

6. Roll out the beignets: Once the dough has doubled in size, lightly flour your work surface and turn the dough out onto it. Turn on your burner with the oil on to heat but be sure to set a timer for a few minutes to check the temp (very easy to lose track of time otherwise). Using the heels of your hands or a rolling pin, press the dough out to about a 1/4 inch thickness. It will seem quite thin, that’s what you want. Take your pizza cutter or brunch scraper and cut small rectangles—it’s important to make sure you have clean cuts on all sides of your beignets so they puff properly in the fryer. The size should be about 3 x 2 inches. You can combine all the scraps together and roll them out to get more beignets. In total this recipe will make about 12 donuts if you go with the aforementioned size.
   

7. Fry the beignets: Temp your oil—if you’re at 350F you’re ready to fry. Carefully drop your beignets into the oil. At first they will sink but they should rise relatively quickly back to the surface of the oil. They will begin to puff like a little pillow. I like to flip them before they puff so much that they begin tearing (about 15 seconds). Fry for 1 minute per side. In summary: drop the donuts in and wait for them to rise to the surface and puff, flip them and fry for 1 minute, flip them back over and fry for about 45 seconds. Use your kitchen spider to remove the beignets when they’ve finished frying. Place the donuts in the bowl with the vanilla sugar and toss immediately. Return to the oil and repeat step 6 until all your beignets are done.
   

8. Enjoy with some coffee or ice cream!
   

Additional Recipes:

• Vanilla Powdered Sugar

  • 1 cup of powdered sugar

  • 1/4 cup Olive Nation Vanilla Powder (4oz bag is enough!)

  • Method: add both ingredients to a large bowl (big enough to toss the beignets in) and whisk the sugar and powder to combine. Set near your stove top so you can put the beignets directly into it when they’re done frying.

Resources: Links to my preferred items!

Ingredients

King Arthur All Purpose Flour (full disclosure this is DEFINITELY cheaper at Publix or Costco)

Pink Himalayan Salt (I know people prefer kosher but this is what I’m used to and what I’ve tested this recipe with. Keep in mind some salts are saltier than others—sounds weird, doesn’t it?)

Mazola Corn Oil

Resources

Olive Nation’s website is full of SO MANY fun, unique, and useful baking supplies. Be sure to browse!

Hit me up on Instagram with any questions I’m happy to help out with any questions you have about donuts and/or this recipe. Just shoot me a DM!

Kitchen Tools

Thermometer (this is the one I use, but this one is also preferred by a lot of cooks)

Bench Scraper (this one has inch measurements on it which are great for donut letters (class coming soon!))

Bowl Scraper (set of two) (two seems like too many but these work so much better than spatulas for getting dough out of bowls and you might just get addicted to using them and need both…)

Lodge Cast Iron Pan with LID (love a lid, helps speed up the oil heating imo—not backed by any evidence just me thinking it—and also nice to have so once you’re done frying you can cover it up and curb the oil smell a bit)

Lodge Cast Iron Pan (no lid)