Slowly but surely, I'm figuring out how to make the stuff I miss the most. Today's messy kitchen turned out real yeast donuts that were awesome, and only 3.5 carbs apiece. The basic (high carb) recipe for beignets comes from an impeccable pedigree -- Williams Sonoma -- so you know it can't help but be good!

You'll need a cooking thermometer that goes up to at least 380 degrees, a deep fryer, dutch oven, or just a good heavy saucepan (which is what I used), and a bottle of peanut oil. The original recipe calls for a food processor, which is what I used, but I bet a stand mixer with a dough hook would work.

This is the original recipe (so you can make your own tweaks, if you want to), followed by my substitutions.

2/3 cup warm water (115 degrees)
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2-1/2 tsps. (1 package) active dry yeast
3 - 4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 egg, lightly beaten
Peanut oil for deep frying
Confectioner's sugar and/or cinnamon, for dusting

In a 2-cup measuring cup, combine the water, granulated sugar, salt and yeast. Let stand until frothy, about 10 minutes.

Measure out 3 1/2 cups of the flour into a food processor. With the motor running, slowly add the yeast mixture, processing until fully absorbed. Add the cream and egg and process to form a soft dough. Add more flour, 1 Tbs. at a time, until the dough cleans the sides of the work bowl and is no longer sticky. Continue processing for 1 minute to knead. Place the dough in a lightly oiled sealable plastic bag, seal and refrigerate overnight.

Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface and punch it down to eliminate air pockets. Using a floured rolling pin, roll out the dough into an 8-inch square about 3/4 inch thick. Using a sharp knife, square off the corners. Cut the dough into sixteen 2-inch squares, then cut the squares in half on the diagonal to form 32 triangles. Transfer to a lightly floured baking sheet and let rise, uncovered, until doubled in size, about 45 minutes.

In a heavy saucepan or deep fryer, pour in oil to a depth of 4 inches and heat to 375°F on a deep-frying thermometer. Add the pieces of dough, a few at a time, and deep-fry, turning as needed, until golden, about 1 minute. Using a slotted spoon, transfer to paper towels to drain.

Sprinkle generously with confectioners’ sugar and serve hot. Makes 32 beignets.


My Substitutions:
For the warm water, I substituted DaVinci's Cinnamon syrup topped off with a little water, to make 2/3 cup, heated in the microwave. I measured the temperature with my food thermometer.

For the granulated sugar, I substituted 6 packets of Splenda.

To the yeast, I added 2 teaspoons of regular sugar, to make sure the yeast activated. (The reason I did this was because my yeast was more than a year old. Since I got 32 donuts, the 2 tsps of sugar added a quarter of a carb to each donut. If you use fresh yeast, I'd still recommend using a tsp of real sugar, since sugar activates the yeast -- it'll only add about one eighth of one carb to each donut). I also added a couple of shakes of ginger into the yeast, because I read somewhere that ginger also helps to activate yeast.

The low carb flour was made up of 1-1/2 cups of vanilla whey protein, 1 cup of Bob's Red Mill vital wheat gluten, and 1 cup of Krusteaz CarbSimple white bread mix. I used additional vanilla whey protein to dust my work surface and rolling pin.

The dusting confectioner's sugar was regular granulated Splenda processed in my food processor until it turned to powdered Splenda. I sprinkled in some cinnamon, as well.

No other substitutions. My processor wasn't powerful enough to completely knead this high-gluten mix, so I turned it out onto a board and finished kneading it by hand, using vanilla whey protein powder to keep the dough from sticking. I only had to knead it for a minute or two; the dough should be soft and light.

Just a note on the flour: I bought a couple of cases of past-the-sell-by-date CarbSimple bread mix at my local Dollar Store, and I've been using it for flour in my recipes. But you don't need it. Their flour is mostly vital wheat gluten anyway, although it also wheat flour, wheat protein isolate, and ascobic acid in it, as well as a dough conditioner. You can make all these substitutions yourself, or at least the important ones. A combination of 1/2 whey protein powder and 1/2 vital wheat gluten, together with a crushed up vitamin C tablet (ascorbic acid), a little lemon juice (citric acid), or a little cream of tartar (tartaric acid) will give you pretty much the same product.

The important thing is that this is one of the recipes where you don't want to use nut flours; it's just too heavy for yeast raised donuts. And I wouldn't use soy flour either; it has too heavy a soy taste. You could use soy protein isolate, though. It's very light in texture, very low carb, and doesn't have that soy taste.

I so hope you try these. Mine came out great.

These look really good - my grandma and aunt make faustnachs for fat Tuesday and I hadn't tried any LC alternatives. Thanks!!

Cheri, what are faustnachs, and where do they come from (sounds German, of course -- but maybe Austrian?) Can you post a recipe? I really try hard to make good conversions! If you are not intimidated by working with yeast, you gotta try these. I made another batch, and they are sooo good. Just remember to keep your "flour" very light -- lots of whey protein powder, plus some vital wheat gluten, instead of nut flour. Happy Thanksgiving!

Fasnachts are basically the german/austrian equivalent of begniets. Palmsized squarisg pillows of fried dough. Usually consumed on fat tuesday. May aunt and grandma just use a basic egg-bread dough and cut it in squares and fry them and sprinkle powdered sugar on top - I think splenda would work fine as a pd sugar substitute. So your recipe looks like a keeper!! Thanks!!