Choice Morsel: The recipe for Spring Hill Beignets

In last week's Choice Morsel, Tracy Schneider spotlighted six local beignets. This week, she scouts out the recipe for one so you can craft your own.

Spring Hill beignets | photo by Tracy Schneider

The Northwest beignets Mark Fuller created for the brunch menu at his West Seattle restaurant, Spring Hill, were inspired by the Portuguese malasadas popular in Hawaii, where he grew up. Chef Fuller has graciously agreed to share his recipe with us, which has been adapted for the home cook. —Tracy Schneider

Spring Hill Apple Beignets

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 cups milk
2 egg yolks (from medium or large eggs)

1 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 pinch salt

3 Granny Smith apples

Vegetable oil

Directions:

1. Mix the flour, 1 tablespoon sugar, baking powder, and 1 teaspoon kosher salt together in a medium-sized mixing bowl. Combine the milk and egg yolks in small mixing bowl. Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Batter should be as thick as pancake batter — smooth, not lumpy.

2. In a small bowl, mix together 1 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon cinnamon and a pinch of salt.

3. Peel, then core the apples and slice out rings. Do this as quickly as possible so the apples don’t oxidize and turn brown.

4. In a fryer or deep pan heat the oil to 325 degrees F. Dip the apples in the batter and fry until golden brown. Beignets will sink or float depending on the density of the apples. Be sure to fry them long enough to cook the batter all the way through.

5. Remove from fryer and toss with cinnamon sugar mixture. Serve hot with vanilla crème anglaise.

Check back weekly for more tasty discoveries from Tracy Schneider's Choice Morsel column.