Behold the Beignet

Seriously addicting pastries ... all for the kids

Alicia Grega-Pikul

It's OK if you've never heard of a beignet. I hadn't either when the Milk Saving Starving Children foundation opened the nonprofit Cafe Beignet in October 2004. The foundation itself dates back to 2001, when it began deliver powdered milk to needy children in Ecuador, Haiti, Mexico, Africa, and Italy.

All cafe proceeds benefit the cause, but beignets are the guilty pleasure that return the favor.

To catch you up, a beignet is a sort of French doughnut (from the Middle French word for "bump" acc. to Wikipedia) abundant in New Orleans, deep fried and sprinkled liberally with confectioners sugar. If you like big, fat pieces of funnel cake, you'll love beignets.

Open from 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. most weekdays, the small European flavored coffee shop serves beignets and not a whole heck of a lot more. Cookies, muffins, brownies, bagels, etc. are the norm, with ice cream in the summer.

The cafe is operated by smiling volunteers. They take their beignets very seriously, making the pasties to order.

At about 50 cents each, and the proceeds benefiting charity, you don't just order one. Customers generally leave with large dozen boxes for the office or a meeting. My daughter - perhaps the city's biggest beignet fan - asked to take a couple of dozen into school for her birthday last year instead of the expected cupcake. I obliged, snickering at the vision of the third grade covered in powder sugar.

The smell of these air-filled little pillows of sweet dough intoxicates on first whiff. The layers are too dense to be considered flaky, yet there's a lightness to the whole experience. For as decadent as eating a beignet is, it doesn't feel like a huge threat to the diet.

Cafe Beignet is located at 801 N. Washington Ave., across the street from Cooper's.