Bottereaux Nantais
Better than a knock on the head
Realities disguised as symbols are, for me, new realities that are immeasurably preferable. - Claude Cahun
In 1750, the Dictionnaire Étymologique de la Langue Françoise defined the word beignet or bignet as a “type of pastry” possibly rooted in the Hebrew word pinnek which signifies “faire bonne chere à quelqu’un” (to make someone welcome) or le nourrie délicatement (nourish someone delicately). The word also signified a “delicious food” or a delicacy. Ménage, the author of this great work, points out that “the Hebrews made a sort of beignet out of flour, oil, and honey, although the several different words used for the variations of this delicacy weren’t close to either the word pinnek or beignet.”
M. Ménage also considered that the word beignet/bignet more than likely came from the word bigne, meaning swelling or tumor because, of course, beignets swell during cooking. Tasty.
A similar origin of the word bignet (ou beignet) in Le Dictionnaire de l’Académie Françoise (dedicated to the King in 1694), here described as “a type of dough fried in a pan,” can be found only if one notices the preceding definition of bigne, meaning “a bump on the head.” Again indicating the aspect of the dough once it is tossed in the hot oil and fried. Yummy.
Beignets, donuts or, more aptly, doughnuts to us Americans, those little mounds of dough deep-fried in oil until puffed and golden then doused in sugar, are indeed ancient sweet confections, possibly one of the earliest pastries with proof that both the ancient Hebrews and the ancient Egyptians made a type of confection of flour, semolina, or even lentils, and water, sometime with the addition of soft cheese, fried in olive oil, and coated in honey. The ancient Greeks had a similar treat, the loukoumades, a small round of fried dough drenched in honey and dusted with cinnamon or sugar, eaten primarily on festive days and special occasions. Delicious.
The first written recipe for a beignet, aliter dulcia, was in De re coquinaria, Culinary art, a collection of recipes attributed to Marcus Gavius Apicius in the 1st century and compiled at the end of the 4th century. Apicius’s beignets were simply flour turned into a thick paste with water, allowed to dry, then sliced into into cubes and fried “in the best oil”, then covered in honey, seasoned with a bit of pepper, and eaten. The first mention in a French cookbook can be found in Le Viandier by Guillaume Tirel, better known in the world of cooking as Taillevent, head chef for both Charles V and Charles VI. Le Viandier, a significant work whose earliest known manuscript is dated 1300, mentions brugnes; Taillevant instructs that a batter made of flour, finely chopped or ground herbs, honey and white wine to be dropped by small spoonfuls into boiling oil and fried “in the manner of brugnes” or beignets. Beignets were quite popular by the early Middle Ages, from rissoles, fried raviolis or turnovers, pipefarces, made with the addition of soft cheese much like the Egyptians did, mistembecs, fried dough served covered in honey, and beignets soufflés, which we’ll cover in a future post. Jean de Joinville, King Louis IX's adviser and biographer, mentions being served beignets (bègues) de fromage, cuites au soleil (cheese beignets cooked in the sun) when he and his seigneur the king entered Egypt in the middle of the 13th century (Mémoires de Jean, sire de Joinville, ou Histoire et chronique du très-chrétien roi saint Louis).
By the end of the 14th century, beignets seem to have evolved into something more than simply fried batter, at least in France. They are now primarily savory and primarily slices of food dipped in a batter then fried, rather than the dough itself being the main and only element of the snack. The Ménagier de Paris, written in 1393 by “a bourgeois Parisian” for his young wife’s “moral and economic domestic instruction,” mentions serving beef marrow beignets, also spelled bignés or buignets, served as part of a savory course, of course.
While Lancelot de Casteau, master chef for the prince-bishops of Liège, includes the recipe for bugnolles in his 1604 recipe collection Ouvertures de Cuisine, a beignet made simply of flour blended into a mixture of boiled cream and butter into which eggs are then added to make a batter which is then dropped by small spoonfuls and fried in butter, most other cookbooks of the 17th century seem to have taken the beef marrow version of the beignet and run with it, although chefs do appear to be improving on the essence of the batter.
François Pierre De La Varenne includes 3 recipes for baignets* in his 1651 Le Cuisinier François, one with bone marrow, one with artichokes, and another with apples. His batter was made with cheese, milk, flour, eggs, salt and either lard or butter; the batter is then sweetened with sugar and flavored with either orange flower water or rose water. Slices of marrow, apple, or artichokes are each, in their turn, dipped in this batter and fried. He also mentions doing the same with oysters or slices of kidney. Nicolas de Bonnefons has a section on beignets in his book Les Délices de la Campagne published in 1661. His batter is also made of soft cheese, milk, flour, white wine, eggs, and a dash of salt; the batter, he explains, should be the consistency of porridge. He uses this batter for beignets de pommes; he suggests the same with slices of cheese, mushrooms, or artichokes. He also uses the same batter to make crêpes. He does suggest “another manner in which to make excellent beignets” by simply making a batter of flour and water, flavoring it, if one likes, with orange flower water, then frying little bits in lard or butter. Or another of eggs, flour, verjus, and salt, then frying. And, he ends his chapter with, “you can dust all of your beignets with sugar”.
*(another idea of the origins of the word beignet is that it could be a distortion of the French word baigner, to bathe, as in “a food or slice of food being bathed in batter before being fried. It’s curious to see La Varenne use this spelling.)
François Massialot’s succeeding editions of Le Cuisinier Royal et Bourgeois from the late 1600s to the 1730s give a wonderful look into the evolution - and popularity - of the beignet. His 1693 edition includes recipes for beignet à l’eau, a water-based confection like a thick choux dough flavored with diced lime peel and candied lime which is then rolled, cut into shapes, and fried in lard, dusted with sugar, sprinkled with orange flower water and served as hors d’oeuvres. His entremets beignets au blanc manger are made with rice flour and milk, adding “roasted and chopped rooster stomachs”, I assume as a thickening agent although beyond that I don’t really want to know, also making a dough to be rolled and cut. He recommends sweetening this dough with sugar and flavoring with chopped candied lemon peel and lime zest. His more traditional beignets au lait are made with milk, flour, eggs, the batter to be dropped from a spoon into the boiling lard. He ends his section by adding that one can make beignets flavored with apples, apricot jam, other fruits, pistachios, and also a savory beignet using parmesan cheese.
Massialot’s 1730 edition of the same cookbook, now in 3 volumes, expands on the beignet and even gives each type of beignet its own name: Beignet à l’Allemande (a dough flavored with cinnamon, lemon zest, either almonds, orange flowers, or iris in powder form, then cut into strips, fried, and sugared); Beignet de pain-à-chanter (a dab of jam is sandwiched between 2 small rounds of pain-à-chanter dough, a crisp, flat, unleavened bread like matzoh, dipped in a white white, flour, and egg white batter, fried and sugared); Beignet de Savoye; a savory Beignet de fromages made with Brie, Parmesan, and Gruyère); and Beignet à la Quando, the first recipe for beignets that I’ve seen using a doughnut iron.
By the time Les Dons de Comus, (The culinary art reduced to practice) was written by François Marin in 1750, beignets of all sorts, both savory and sweet, seem to be pretty common fare, and his ideas and recipes are endless. He’s now flavoring the batter or dough with wine, beer, cheese, or powdered almonds, filling them with cream, fruits, jams, flowers, grape leaves, and marrow. Beignets are rolled and cut, dropped, or dipped, both large and small.
And then there were the yeast donuts.
Quite possibly the first beignets made with a yeast dough were the Austrian krapfen, invented by confectioner Cecilia Krapf in the 18th century; in France, these jam-filled fried rounds of brioche dough were henceforth called beignets viennois or beignet à la dauphine, and France might very well have discovered them in the first decades of the 19th century in the pages of Antonin Carême’s Le Pâtissier Royal Parisien. In his chapter Entremets de friture, fried entremets, we’re introduced to beignets à la dauphine comprising 2 rounds of brioche dough sandwiching a quarter spoonful of jam, strawberries or plums rolled in sugar, apricot halves or cherries cooked in syrup, or cream, which are then fried and dusted with sugar.
Which all brings us to the tradition of eating beignets on Mardi Gras.
Pierre Richelet’s le Dictionnaire François contenant les mots et les choses, the first monolingual French-language dictionary compiled in 1680, already has bignet (beignet) “composed of eggs, flour, and milk, that one tempers/soaks (or makes a batter of the right consistency) that is cooked in a pan, as specifically eaten on fat days (jours gras). La Varenne’s instructions for frying his beignets in either lard or butter indicate that lard should be used for jours gras or fat days and butter for jours maigres or lean days.
The idea of making and eating beignets for Mardi Gras, might very well be as old as the Christian rituals surrounding Lent themselves. As we have already discussed several times, many Christian rituals and foods come from Roman and pagan symbols and festivities. As mentioned above, the Greeks served loukoumades on festive occasions as did the early Romans. The Romans celebrated the end of winter and the reawakening of nature and the renewal of agricultural activities with great feasts abundant with food, costumes and merrymaking, specifically at this time of year during the Calends or Kalends of March, before getting to the springtime work of farming. In Christian tradition, Shrove Tuesday - Mardi Gras - marks the beginning of Lent, the 40-day period symbolising the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert during which Christians eat “maigre”, abstaining from eating certain foods, specifically meat products. The celebration of Mardi Gras, like the Roman end-of-winter festivities, brought together large numbers of people, all of whom had to be fed, quickly, abundantly, and cheaply. This was also an opportunity to use up stores of foods that could not be eaten during the 40 days of Lent, so butter, oil, and eggs along with flour and sugar were thrown together to make pancakes, waffles, or crêpes, and, of course, doughnuts…beignets.
While I most definitely ate chiacchiere, fritole, and sfingi when I lived in Italy, learning about the tradition of eating these fried treats before and for Carnevale, I discovered the French specialties only after we moved back to France, and the selection of beignets for Mardi Gras are as vast as the number of regions that embrace this specialty: foutimassons, merveilles, tourtisseaux, fredennes, bugnes, oreillettes, every region has its specialty, yet all are a play on the same thing: dough (either yeasted or not) that has been deep-fried (fluffy and tender or flat and crisp) then, hot out of the oil, dusted copiously with granulated or powdered sugar and eaten.
And I started making these Mardi Gras treats when I lived in Nantes. And in Nantes and the region around Nantes and through the Anjou (Angers) and all the way to Chinon, we eat bottereaux. Bottereaux are made from a brioche-like yeast dough, often flavored with one of the 2 most common flavorings of the region: dark rum or orange flower water; they are then rolled out and cut into losenges, fried and dusted with powdered sugar. Lots of powdered sugar. No one quite knows why they are called bottereaux - some claim that it comes from the word botrea, meaning beignet in the ancient language of Poitou (a city half an hour south of Chinon), while some point to the 13th century Le Roman de Renart, in which is mentioned boteron, meaning petit bout or “small end” or “little bit”. Whatever the reason, they are too good to pass up and certainly too good to eat only on Mardi Gras.
Bottereaux are normally made with a yeast-risen dough creating feather-light pillows, although they can also be made much more simply with baking powder (like her cousin from Lyon, the bugne), making for a denser, cake-like beignet, almost like a fried version of a brioche. I’ve given you a recipe for both.
Yeast Bottereaux Nantais
2 ¾ cups (380 grams) flour
2 ¼ teaspoons (7 grams) active dry yeast
Large pinch salt
2 tablespoons (30 grams) granulated sugar
⅜ cup (100 ml) milk
9 tablespoons (125 grams) unsalted butter
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
½ teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons dark or amber rum, optional but good; can be replaced with 1 tablespoon orange flower water
Oil for frying
Powdered/confectioner’s sugar for dusting
Whisk 1 cup of the flour, the active dry yeast, salt, and granulated sugar together in a large mixing bowl.
Heat the milk and butter together gently over medium-low heat until most of the butter (about two thirds) has melted. Remove from the heat and stir until all of the butter has melted. Touch the liquid with the back of a finger; it should feel warm or tepid - not hot - which is exactly what you want. Warm liquid activates the yeast while too cold will have no effect and too hot will kill the yeast.
Pour the warm milk and butter over the dry ingredients in the bowl and stir until you have a smooth paste. Add the lightly beaten eggs, vanilla, and rum and stir until blended. Stir in one more cup of the flour mixture until smooth. Blend in another half a cup flour, forming a dough. Sprinkle the last half cup flour on a clean work surface and scrape the dough out of the bowl onto the flour and knead until the flour is incorporated and you have a very smooth, elastic dough, about 5 minutes.
Place the ball of dough in a clean, lightly-greased bowl, turning the dough to coat with the oil. Cover the bowl with plastic and allow to rest and rise for about 3 hours.
Scrape the risen dough out of the bowl onto a lightly floured work surface and roll out to an even thickness of ¼ to ½ inch (½ to 1 cm). Using a sharp knife, pastry or pizza cutter, slice smoothly into 2-inch (5 cm) strips. Then cut each strip into 2-inch squares. Heat the oil to 350°F (180°C) then slide a few squares of dough in at a time – you not only don’t want to crowd the bottereaux but putting in too many at a time will lower the temperature of the hot oil!
The beignets will float up to the top of the oil then begin to brown. Using a slotted spoon, gently and carefully turn the beignets over once or twice or so during frying, allow them to turn a deep golden on both sides. They should also be well puffed up. Using the slotted spoon, scoop up the bottereaux and allow to drain quickly on paper toweling. Continue to fry all of the squares of dough.
Place all the freshly fried, warm bottereaux on a serving platter and dust with generous amounts of powdered/confectioner’s sugar. Eat warm and fresh.
Baking powder Bottereaux Nantais (A simpler, kid-friendly (for baking) baking powder version of the Bottereaux )
2 cups (280 grams) flour plus more as needed
1 teaspoon baking powder
Small pinch salt
4 tablespoons (50 grams) granulated sugar
3 ½ tablespoons (55 grams) salted butter, cubed, softened to room temperature (unsalted butter can be used, simply add an extra pinch of salt)
2 large eggs, lightly beaten to blend
2 - 5 tablespoons (30 to 50 ml) rum, to taste; optional but good; can be replaced with 1 tablespoon orange flower water
Oil for frying
Powdered (confectioner's or icing) sugar or cinnamon-sugar for dusting
Put the flour in a large mixing bowl and make a well in the center. Place the baking powder, salt, granulated sugar, softened butter, beaten eggs and most of the rum into the well. Using a wooden spoon, stir the wet ingredients into the dry, pulling the flour little by little into the batter as a thick paste is formed, gradually working the flour into the batter and creating a smooth dough. If the dough is too dry simply add a bit more rum as needed until all of the flour is moistened and a dough is starting to pull together.
Scrape the scraggly dough out onto a floured work surface and knead vigorously for a few minutes until all of the butter is worked in and the dough is smooth and elastic (press your hand into the dough and then release; the dough should spring back). Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 or 3 hours.
Roll the rested dough out on a lightly floured work surface to a thickness of about ¼ inch (5 mm).
Using a sharp knife or pizza or pastry cutter, slice the dough into 2 -inch wide strips then crosswise to make 2-inch squares or lozenges. These can be made larger if you like.
Heat the oil to 350°F (180°C) and slide the squares of dough gently into the hot oil. They will fry very quickly so watch carefully! Using a metal slotted spoon, turn the beignets once or twice while frying and once they are puffed up and evenly golden brown on both sides, scoop them out of the oil and drain on paper toweling.
Transfer the bottereaux to a clean plate and sprinkle generously with powdered sugar and eat while fresh and hot. They can also be tossed quickly in granulated sugar or cinnamon-sugar.
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Yet another fascinating fact-filled article that left me drooling! Thank you.
Dear Jamie- love your recipes and the history you always add. You not only have a knack for baking but also for words. Hardly see you on Twitter anymore, so I am all the happier that you are on Substack. Somehow I never thought about it before, but you must speak French fluently, right? How many languages do you speak? Inquiring minds want to know. 😃