It was 7:30 a.m. on a Sunday and I had already been on the phone with tech support for five hours trying to get wireless internet hooked up in my new apartment. Despairing that I would never again have email access at midnight and beaten down by incomprehensible lingo, I took deep breaths to quell frustration while intermittently intoning, “it’s time to make the doughnuts.” Hanukkah’s on the horizon, after all, and I had decided Sunday would be the day I’d try my hand at making sufganiyot, the jelly-filled treats that, for me, conjure up the eight-day celebration even more than latkes.
Sufganiyot (Jelly Doughnuts)
March 16, 2021
Ingredients
- 2scant tablespoons (2 packages) active dry yeast
- 4tablespoons sugar, plus sugar for rolling
- ¾cup lukewarm water or milk
- 2 ½cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 2large egg yolks
- Pinch salt
- 1teaspoon cinnamon
- 1 ½tablespoons unsalted butter or pareve margarine, at room temp
- Vegetable oil for deep-frying
- ½cup plum, strawberry, or apricot jam
Yield: Makes 24 2-inch wide sufganiyot
Preparation
- Step 1
Sprinkle the yeast and 2 tablespoons of the sugar into the water or milk and stir to dissolve.
- Step 2
Place the flour on a work surface and make a well in the center. Add the yeast mixture, egg yolks, salt, cinnamon, butter, and the remaining 2 tablespoons sugar. Knead well, about 5 minutes, working the butter or margarine into the dough and kneading until the dough is elastic. You can also use a food proces-sor fitted with the steel blade to do this, processing about 2 minutes.
- Step 3
Put the dough in a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let it rise overnight in the refrigerator.
- Step 4
Sprinkle flour on the work surface. Roll out the dough to an 1/8-inch thick-ness. Using a 2-inch cookie cutter or floured drinking glass, cut out circles. Let the dough circles rise 15 minutes more.
- Step 5
With your hands, gently form the dough circles into balls.
- Step 6
Pour 2 inches of oil into a heavy pot and heat until very hot, about 375 degrees.
- Step 7
Slip the doughnuts into the oil, 4 or 5 at a time, using a slotted spoon. Turn them when brown, after a few minutes, to crisp on the other side. Drain on paper towels.
- Step 8
Using an injector available at cooking stores, inject a teaspoon of jam into each doughnut. Then roll all of them in granulated sugar and serve immediately. You can make larger sufganiyot if you like.