The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Popeyes’ beignets dense, chewy
Powdered sugar can’t hide disappointment of new dessert.
Popeyes caught lightning in a fryer basket when it introduced its crispy chicken sandwich in 2019, which may have been America’s final moment of collective joy before we settled into lives of not- so- quiet desperation. This week, Popeyes debuted beignets at outlets across the country so fast food consumers could get a taste of what the chain describes, in press materials, as the “classic New Orleans- style pastry.”
The description is curious: I mean, it’s either a classic New Orleans pastry or it’s not. A “classic New Orleans- st yle pastry ” sounds like it could be any baked good with a tenuous connection to the city, like an eclair filled with Cheez Whiz. Or, in this case, a “beignet” stuffed with Hershey’s chocolate.
If Popeyes was hoping its new dessert would have t he same impact as its crispy chicken sandwich, I’m afraid the chain was as misguided as, well, a beignet packed with Hershey’s chocolate.
Sure, you can find plenty of examples of stuffed beignets – sweet or savory – but the classic is just a fried length of yeasted dough buried under a snow drift of confectioner’s sugar. Look at the menu at Cafe du Monde, the French Market shop that made the pastry famous, and count up how many kinds of beignets are available for sale.
One. Just one. The classic beignet , s ol d t hree t o a pl at e, 24 hours a day, 364 days a year. ( They take Christmas Day off.)
David Guas is a New Orleans native. He was raised, in part, i n New Orleans East , about a mile and a half, he says, from the second location of the thenbudding Popeyes chain, which was founded in 1972 by Al Copeland, a man so poor he said he could not afford an apostrophe for the brand name. Guas, chef and founder of Bayou Bakery in Arlington, Virginia, knows a lot about both Popeyes and beignets. He sells the dessert at his shop, too.
Guas has heard of beignets f i l l ed with c rawfish and beignets filled with crab, but he cannot recall one filled with chocolate. He suspects Popeyes did not trust that Americans would embrace the simple pleasure of a hollow fritter dusted with powdered sugar, this delicious interplay of air, oil, sugar and fried dough. He also suspects the Popeyes’ beignet is going to confuse a fair number of people.
He’s expecting phone calls, a lot of them.
“I’ll gladly get 100 phone calls a n d a n s wer t h e m a l l , i f t h a t means that 50% of those people are going to come in and eat a beignet because of Popeyes,”
Guas tells me. “I think that the general international or national awareness is a good thing. It’s just now we have to field the phone calls and say, ‘ No, ours are not filled. . . . No, it doesn’t come with chocolate sauce or raspberry jam.’”
I’ ve ordered chocolate beignets from Popeyes twice since they debuted. Once from a shopping mall and once in a drive-through. Either way, you’ re immediately confronted with a decision: Do you eat the beignets immediately in the car, while they’re still hot, and risk turning your vehicle i nto a winter wonderland of confectioner’s sugar? Or do you wait till you get home when the pastries are lukewarm at best, a demerit against any decent beignet?
These fast food beignets ( which start at about $ 2 for three) are smaller than the ones I’ve had on the patio at Cafe du Monde. They’re roughly the size of Totino’s frozen pizza rolls, which may t ell you something about Popeyes’ t arget audience for these treats: sweet little poppers for the party crowd. The beignets are dense and chewy, too, with very little lift in the fried pocket. If air is part of a beignet’s appeal, the culinary equivalent of negative space in art, then you’ll have to settle for deep deposits of melted chocolate instead. For many, I suspec t t hat’s an acceptable trade- off.
The most brilliant part of Popeyes’ dessert rollout may be its “beignet camo,” black hoodies designed to look as if you just showered powdered sugar all across your shoulders, arms and stomach. The outerwear is meant to conceal your, presumably, illicit assignation with beignets. But the garment also gives off the i mpression that you just sneezed while powdering your nose at Tony Montana’s house.
The other brilliant thing about the beignets? They give you an excuse to order a crispy chicken sandwich, which is as good as ever.