Are you hearing the Sirius XM jingle for their channel, Holiday Traditions (I know I am)? We’re almost there…it’s almost Thanksgiving! As y’all know, I don’t eat Turkey (although The Mister will be smoking an epic one this year) but I do look forward to our Thanksgiving morning homemade beignets. Last year was a critical year in beignet-ery at our house. We made a savory beignet (which we liked far more than the sweet variety) and it will certainly make a repeat appearance in 2020.

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We are mixing things up a bit with the base recipe. I found this recipe which looks like it might be a winner AND it will be an easy adjustment to make it dairy-free. As if that weren’t exciting enough, we’re doing a Facebook Live event (through our hoping to adopt page) while we make beignets this year, so you can watch us beignet (is that a verb? it is now.) in all our glory. Basically, you can watch us make a mess and then glutton ourselves on delicious fried dough. If you’re interested in making your own beignets (it’s really not hard), here’s the shopping list:

Thanksgiving Beignets Ingredients & Equipment:

• Powdered Sugar
• 1 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup whole milk (I’ll be using a non-dairy type)
• 1 egg
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 18 ounces (3 1/2 cups) all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons vegetable shortening, melted
• Neutral Oil (the author recommends cottonseed, we’ll be using grapeseed)
• We’ll also be using shrimp in some of ours (it’s heavenly)
• Heavy-bottomed ban (we use cast iron)
• A Candy (or other) thermometer

Another thing to consider is that I like to sleep, so we’ll be doing the bulk of this the night before, putting it in the refrigerator overnight, and then take it out to let it come to room temperature the morning of. This is what we’ve always done in the past but this is a new recipe so we don’t know how it will turn out. My intention is to post again with the outcome. I hope you’ll try it too. Either way, best wishes to you for a Happy Thanksgiving!