It’s 8am and I am at Coffee Call, one of the most popular coffee houses in Baton Rouge, the capital of Louisiana. A plate of beignets and café au lait arrive at the table. I am looking forward to this sweet treat that all of Louisiana adores. But the powdered sugar heaped over the beignets holds me back. I am wearing black, and the server seems to understand. “You gonna get sugar all over you,” she says, placing a sugar shaker next to me. “In case you need more,” she smiles.
There is no neat way to eat a beignet. The fritter is often reduced to a doughnut without a hole, but that doesn’t begin to describe this Louisiana love. The dough is yeasted, soft, and slightly sticky, cut into squares and dropped into hot oil. “Because it’s wetter than a typical doughnut dough, it puffs up as it fries, creating a hollow, airy centre. The outside must be golden and crisp, and the sugar must be generous,” she says.
I take a bite. It’s crisp, soft, sweet. The café au lait, made with chicory coffee, steadies it. Beignets came to this region with French colonists in the 18th century. A line from Picayune Creole Cook Book (1901), captures this migration of taste: “The ancient French colonist brought the custom of serving sweet entrements and eatres, such as beignets, compotes, souffles, gelees, etc., from the old mother country to Louisiana”, adapting them to the fruits and ingredients of the region.
At the centre of this story sits Café du Monde in New Orleans. Established in 1862, it began as a coffee stand serving chicory-laced café au lait and fried dough in the French Market. “Our offering hasn’t really changed. The menu is still pared back: coffee, beignets, hot chocolate, milk,” the woman at the till says. “Now we offer fresh orange juice, iced coffee, and sodas as well.”
I learn that Louis Gillette of Café du Monde in 1928 told a local paper that a tourist once offered him $250, a significant sum at the time, for the recipe. He refused, but explained the process. The dough, the paper wrote, is “rolled thin, about one-eighth of an inch”, cut into strips, then squares, and dropped into vats of hot oil. They puff almost instantly, turning golden in about two minutes, before being finished with powdered sugar.
But the name took time to catch up. For years, these were just “French Market doughnuts”. The shift came in 1958, when the name beignet took hold. Times-Picayune writer Howard Jacobs wrote that the “good ole doughnut has gone cultural on us”. The new name reflected its European roots and set the beignet apart. The change stuck, and by 1986, Louisiana had declared it the official state doughnut.
At Cafe Beignet, also in New Orleans, loyalists insist their beignets are lighter and fluffier. This quiet one-upmanship between coffee houses has led to experimentation. At Loretta’s Authentic Pralines, praline-filled beignets offset black coffee. Morning Call uses a sourdough base, while The Vintage leans into flavours like matcha and blueberry cheesecake.
The beignet shifts again in Mobile, in the neighbouring state of Alabama, where I stop at Panini Pete’s during a food tour. Here, the signature move is to squeeze fresh lemon over hot, sugar-covered beignets. At Mo’Bay Beignet Co., they are offered with syrups such as cinnamon and buttercream.
What remains constant anywhere is the mess that powdered sugar makes—on hands, clothes, tables. The beignet isn’t designed for restraint; it doesn’t belong to a particular time of day or social setting. From a historic café in the French Quarter to a roadside stop along the Gulf Coast, it’s omnipresent.
Back at Coffee Call, I brush sugar off my shirt, unsuccessfully. The plate is empty. The server notices and nods toward the shaker she left behind. “Need more?” she asks. ”We also serve beignet fingers.”
There’s no reason to say no.
Teja Lele writes on travel and lifestyle.