The name of the New Orleans square-shaped pastry dusted with powdered sugar is beignet.
A Louisiana-style beignet is a deep-fried pastry made from yeast-leavened dough. The dough is cut into squares or rectangles, fried until puffed and golden, then covered generously with confectioners’ sugar. New Orleans beignets are usually served hot, often for breakfast or as a dessert.
Beignets have French roots, but the New Orleans version became closely associated with Creole cuisine and the city’s French Market. Café du Monde, a landmark open-air coffee stand founded in 1862, helped make the pastry famous among visitors. It is commonly served with café au lait, traditionally made with coffee blended with hot milk.
A common mix-up is treating every beignet as identical. French beignets can use choux pastry, while New Orleans beignets generally use a risen dough and have a distinctive square shape. They are also different from doughnuts, even though both are fried pastries.