Fry up your own sufganiyot for Hanukkah

By Linda Morel

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NEW YORK (JTA)—At the age of 14, having a great time dropping doughnuts into boiling oil despite the occasional spatter, little did I realize I was decades ahead of the curve.

In my Ashkenazi world, the feisty little potato pancake flecked with chopped onions was the centerpiece of Hanukkah celebrations. My Jewish friends hailed from families who had emigrated from Central and Eastern Europe.

I was in my 40s with a 14-year-old daughter before I found out that Jews from the Middle East, North Africa and certain parts of Europe fry up a myriad of Hanukkah pastries.

At Hanukkah, sufganiyot (doughnuts) are wildly popular in Israel and sold at virtually every market and bakery. Best consumed warm, the yeast-based balls of dough are deep fried and often contain jelly or custard that oozes from their portly centers.

More and more American Jews are making sufganiyot now. I like sufganiyot in principle because they are a marriage of Ashkenazi and Sephardi cuisines.

Sufganiyot are similar to pfannkuchen, a jelly-filled doughnut that German Jews served at Hanukkah during the 1930s. German Zionists carried this holiday custom with them when they immigrated to Palestine.

Scholars claim that sufganiyot are reminiscent of a springy cookie known as sufganne, a fried dough eaten around the Mediterranean since the time of Judah Maccabee. Perhaps that’s why these heavenly doughnuts were given the name sufganiyot in Hebrew, which comes from a Greek word meaning puffed and fried.

Yeast dough fritters called bimuelos are a Hanukkah confection favored by Jews from Greece and Turkey. The word bimuelos derives from Spanish. Often drenched in honey syrup after emerging from the frying pan, bimuelos are also called loukomades by Greek Jews.

Sufganiyot are an offspring of loukomades, one of the oldest sweets known to mankind.

In the “Jewish Holiday Cookbook,” Gloria Kaufer Greene explained that Jews from throughout the Middle East and North Africa swirl strings of dough into simmering oil, creating rosette shapes. This pastry is often called zlabia but goes by zelebi among Yemenite Israelis, and zangoola or zingzoola among Iraqis.

On the Ashkenazi side, I discovered some traditional but often overlooked fried pastries. Viennese layered crepes are an elegant spin on latkes that call for flour and vanilla rather than potatoes and onions. Similar to a layer cake, eight of these crepes—for the eight nights of Hanukkah—are piled atop one another with a spiced applesauce filling between them.

Apple fritters are batter-coated apple slices that are submerged into a deep fryer until they turn a resplendent golden brown. While still warm they are dusted with confectioner’s sugar.

Never eaten fried desserts before? Why not start this Hanukkah?

I suggest dedicating one of the holiday’s eight nights to some of these stunning desserts, perhaps forgoing latkes and other savory fried foods in favor of pastries crisped in oil.

Better still, throw a Sunday afternoon Hanukkah party with a “just desserts” menu. Serve fried sweets along with favorite cookies and platters of fruit.

As Hanukkah is a holiday celebrating the miracle of a one-day supply of oil that stretched for eight days, you can’t find enough excuses to grab a bottle of cooking oil and fry, fry again.

Here’s my recipe for miniature sufganiyot.

Preparation

1. Put sugar in a small bowl. Pour warm water over sugar. Sprinkle yeast over water. With a spoon warmed in hot water, gently stir mixture. Leave for 10 minutes. Mixture should bubble and increase in volume.
2. With 1 tablespoon of oil, grease the bowl of an electric mixer. Place flour in bowl and make a well. Inside of well, place salt, orange juice, egg and egg yolk, margarine, vanilla, 1/3 cup sugar, and yeast mixture, when ready. Using the dough hook attachment, mix until ingredients are well incorporated and a ball of elastic dough forms. Cover bowl tightly with plastic wrap and leave in a warm room for 1½ to 2 hours, until dough doubles in size.
3. Meanwhile, make Cinnamon Sugar by mixing together 1 cup sugar and cinnamon. Place on a dinner plate. Reserve.
4. One at a time, pull off pieces of dough about 2/3 the size of a golf ball. Roll each piece of dough in palms of your hands until you form a smooth ball. Place balls on parchment paper or foil and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise for 30 minutes.
5. Pour remaining oil in a pot, so that oil is  inches deep. The smaller the pot’s diameter the less oil you will need. Heat oil on medium-high flame to 350 degrees or until a speck of dough dropped in oil browns quickly. Place one ball at a time on a long handled slotted spoon and submerge in oil. Fry for 2 to 3 minutes until each sufganiya browns. With slotted spoon turn over sufganiya and brown. Don’t fry more than a couple of Sufganiyot at a time. Lift from oil with slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.
6. When cooled to warm, roll sufganiyot in Cinnamon Sugar and serve immediately. Yield: 24-30 sufganiyot.