A gift from me to you: a recipe for perfect beignets

Once or twice a year I get a craving for donuts. Unfortunately, this craving never comes with enough warning that I can whip up a yeast dough to rise overnight for early-morning frying. But after several attempts, I can now claim success with a yeasty, fried-dough alternative: beignets.

Inspired by my recent trip to New Orleans, I decided to try making beignets again. This was in spite of the unremarkable results of past attempts. However, instead of relying on only baking soda as the leavening agent, as I had in the past, I found a recipe that used both baking soda and yeast, but required none of the pesky rising time. And they were delicious! You don't need to believe me alone - we had so many from the one batch that we fed both the upstairs neighbor and the landlord and his family, and everyone liked them. In fact, I think I'll halve the recipe next time, because it's not that often that I need to simultaneously feed ten people donuts.