Navigate to News section

How to Make Vegan Sufganiyot

A recipe for ‘superfun’ vegan jelly doughnuts, because no stomach should be left out this Hanukkah

by
Isa Chandra Moskowitz
December 21, 2016

I really don’t believe any of the Hanukkah stories about oil lasting for eight days. I think someone in a little village just really wanted jelly doughnuts one day, so they made up the whole thing. In any case, here we are in the 21st century with this undisputed fact: You can’t have Hanukkah without jelly doughnuts! And let’s just agree that there is no such thing as a “baked doughnut.” These babies are deep-fried and coated in sugar, just the way our ancestors intended.

Vegan Jelly Doughnuts (Sufganiyot)

Makes 16 doughnuts

Total: 4 hours

Active: 1 hour

Ingredients:

2¼ teaspoons active dry yeast (one

0.75-ounce packet)

1 cup lukewarm unsweetened almond milk (or your favorite nondairy milk)

6 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons ground flaxseed

3½ cups white bread flour, plus extra for kneading

2 tablespoons sugar, plus more for coating

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons refined coconut oil, melted

Vegetable oil, for deep-frying

1 cup seedless raspberry jam

Directions:

In a small bowl, whisk together the yeast and milk and set aside. In a blender, blend up the water and flaxseed for about a minute until frothy and viscous. Set aside.

In a very large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, and salt, then make a well in the center. Pour in the yeast mixture, the flax mixture, and the coconut oil, then mix to form a dough. Add more flour a tablespoon at a time until the dough isn’t sticky, then turn it out onto a floured counter to knead until the dough is smooth.

Wash out the mixing bowl, lightly coat it with nonstick cooking spray, and add the dough ball. Toss the dough ball to coat it in oil, then cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Place the bowl somewhere warm and let the dough rise until doubled in size, 1 to 2 hours.

Lightly flour the counter and a baking sheet. Turn out the dough onto the floured counter, knead it a couple of times, then roll it out until it’s about ½ inch thick. Using a floured 3-inch cookie cutter (or a drinking glass), stamp out your doughnuts and place them on the floured baking sheet at least 2 inches apart. Squish the dough scraps back together and roll them out again to make more doughnuts, place them on the sheet, then cover the sheet with a clean kitchen towel or plastic wrap and let the doughnuts rise for about 20 minutes.

While the doughnuts are rising, get your fryer ready and turned to 350°F. Have ready a layer of paper towels or brown paper bags to drain. Pour some sugar into a shallow dish for coating the hot doughnuts.

Using a metal slotted spoon, lower the doughnuts into the oil, a few at a time so you don’t crowd the fryer, and fry until golden brown, turning several times to keep the cooking even. Use the slotted spoon to transfer them to the paper towels or bags until cool enough to handle, then roll each one in sugar until completely covered.

Once all the doughnuts are fried and sugared, it’s time to fill them! Fit a pastry bag with a large round tip and fill it with the jam. Poke the tip into the side of each doughnut, then squeeze a couple of teaspoons of jam inside! If you overfill them, the jam will leak out, but that’s okay. Serve!

TIP: Store any leftovers in a paper bag, if you can manage to not eat them all right away.

Excerpted from the book The Superfun Times Vegan Holiday Cookbook by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. Copyright © 2016 by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. Reprinted with permission of Little, Brown and Company.

The Recipe


Vegan Jelly Doughnuts (Sufganiyot)

Vegan Jelly Doughnuts (Sufganiyot)

Isa Chandra Moskowitz is the bestselling author or coauthor of the hit books Isa Does It, Veganomicon, Vegan with a Vengeance, and many other titles. She created the beloved website Post Punk Kitchen (now IsaChandra.com), and her restaurant, Modern Love, has locations in Omaha and Brooklyn.