What Makes Café Du Monde's Beignets So Special

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A melting pot of culinary influences contributed to New Orleans' cuisine, creating some of its most famous dishes, from jambalaya and étouffée to gumbo, po' boys, and muffulettas. But when it comes to the sweet stuff, beignets are the city's quintessential dessert, and Café Du Monde is the most famous spot for the square, French-style donuts. Residents and tourists both line up at the iconic café in the French Market for the light, crisp, and puffy treats, generously topped with powdered sugar.

So, why are they so good? For one thing, the coffee shop has been making them for a very long time, first opening in 1862. They're also the only food on the brief menu, so the entire focus is on doing them right. A secret recipe is used to create the dough for the pastries, which differ from their donut relatives and from Italian zeppoles. Bakers are careful to avoid overmixing, which will toughen the beignets. The dough is rolled ⅛-inch thick and cut into two-inch squares, which are tossed into the hot frying oil.

The oil plays a key role in producing a perfect result. The squares are fried at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 90 seconds in cottonseed oil, which has a high smoke point. It's essential for the oil to be very hot to puff up the pastries and keep them from absorbing too much, which would make them greasy and melt the powdered sugar. Café Du Monde also maintains that cottonseed oil contributes to creating the proper flavor and consistency. The hot beignets come three to a serving in a bag with powdered sugar scooped in. Customers can request ones that turned out either more crispy or puffy.

Even though Café Du Monde says that its dough recipe is secret, it sells a beignet mix that apparently contains the same ingredients, and they're listed on the box. The mix contains wheat and barley flours, buttermilk, salt, sugar, leavening (baking powder, baking soda, and/or yeast), and natural and artificial flavoring. However, the shop still has an advantage as the only one that knows the proper amounts of each.

The beignets are traditionally ordered with Café Du Monde's Coffee and Chicory. Dark roast coffee is mixed with roasted and ground chicory in a four-to-one ratio, which mellows the brew and imparts a kind of chocolatey flavor. Customers can get it either au lait, which is mixed in an equal amount with hot milk, or black.

Both the beignets and the practice of putting chicory in coffee were brought to New Orleans by the Acadians. These were French people and their descendants who'd come to Nova Scotia, and were forcibly removed by Great Britain in 1755. Many of them settled in New Orleans, where they became the Cajuns. They brought their language and culture with them, including fritters that were the precursor to beignets. Paired with chicory coffee? Heaven. As one Redditor put it, "The beignets are amazing[,] and the coffee goes well with [them]. I'm not a fan of styrofoam[,] and it's not the best cup of coffee ever made, but it does [complement] the beignets quite nicely. I wouldn't change a thing" (via Reddit).