The History of Sufganiyot.
It’s nearing the end of Hanukkah and you might be thinking about making a sweet treat to celebrate the final weekend, if so sufganiyot is the perfect dish to enjoy. If you do not celebrate Hanukkah but are interested in making this recipe or would like to know more about this traditional dish, sufganiyot are traditional jam-filled doughnuts that are fried in oil. The process of deep-frying the doughnuts is symbolic of the miracle of the menorah oil. The word ‘sufganiyot’’ (pronounced soof-gahn-eeyot) can actually be traced back to the Greek word ‘sufan’ which means fried or spongy. In Gil Marks’ Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, he traces the history of jam-filled doughnuts to the German cookbook Kuchenmeisterei which was published in 1482 and means ‘Mastery of the Kitchen’. However, the original recipe is not as we know it today, originally it was made using two round pieces of bread with jam in the middle and then deep fried in lard.
As lard is not kosher, Jewish communities adapted the recipe by using schmaltz which is goose or chicken fat to fry them. Prior to the Second World War, many Jewish communities left Europe due to the rising anti-Semitism, and with that, they brought their jam doughnuts. North African Jewish communities had already created a tradition of making smaller deep-fried doughnuts which were called ‘sfenj’ which were popular in Israel. Once the European Jewish communities came to Israel, their traditions intertwined with the Sephardic and North African traditions. The Israeli Union, Histadrut, made the concept of jam doughnuts for the holidays popular in order to keep communities employed through the holiday season by producing the culinary tradition in bakeries. This is how the delicious delicacy has become a holiday tradition.
Sufganiyot Recipe.
Recipe Makes: 10-14 sufganiyot
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cooking Time: 4 hours
Total Time: 4 hours and 30 minutes
Suitable For: Vegetarians and if milk is substituted for water, this recipe is also dairy free.
Equipment Needed:
- Stand mixer with dough attachment
- A work surface suitable for rolling dough
- A large mixing bowl
- Deep fry thermometer
- Baking sheet
- A 4.73 litre sauté pan or 5.67 litre pot
- A straw
- A squeeze bottle with a thin nozzle
- A mesh strainer
- 2 ¼ – 2 ¾ inch circular cookie cutter
- Rolling pin
- Small flat spatula
Ingredients Needed:
- 1 packet of active dry yeast
- 50g of white granulated sugar, divided
- 59ml of canola oil
- 177ml of lukewarm water or milk, divided (use water to make parve)
- 2 large eggs at room temperature
- 500g of unbleached all purpose flour, plus 120g-240g more for dusting rolling surfaces
- ¾ tsp of vanilla extract
- 1tsp salt
- 1 tbsp of brandy, vodka, ouzo, or arak
- 57.5g of powdered sugar for dusting
- 3 pints of oil with a high smoke point for frying
- 280g of fruit jam, if using a berry jam you should double the amount and strain it of seeds and pulp before using
Method:
- Pour your active dry yeast into a small mixing bowl with 59ml of your lukewarm milk or water and 1 tsp of your sugar. Once you have added your ingredients, whisk them together to dissolve the sugar and yeast and then leave it for ten minutes. During those ten minutes, the yeast should activate which will make it look foamy and expanded. Ensure that you are working with fresh yeast, otherwise your dough will not rise.
- If your yeast is foamy, you should whisk in the remaining 118ml of lukewarm milk or water, the remaining 3 tbsp of granulated sugar, 59ml of canola oil, ¾ tsp of vanilla extract and two large eggs. Once you have whisked these ingredients in, you can set the mixture aside.
- Get out your stand mixer and fit it with the dough attachment. Once the dough attachment has been fitted, sift 500g of flour and 1 tsp of salt in your mixer bowl so they are well mixed.
- Pour in your wet ingredients (the yeast mixture). Set your stand mixer to a low speed and mix the dry and wet ingredients together for ten minutes until a very sticky dough has formed. The dough will come together but will stick to the bottom of the mixing bowl. However, if your dough seems dry, you can add a little more water, a tablespoon at a time until your dough becomes sticky. On the other hand, if your dough seems too wet, you can add more flour to the mixture.
- Add 1 tbsp of your chosen liquor and continue to process on low for another 2-3 minutes until the dough comes together again (the mixture should now look sticky but not overly wet). When you have added your liquor, the mixture may seem very wet, but it should continue to come together after 2-3 minutes and return to a more doughy and sticky texture.
- Grease a large mixing bowl with a little bit of your cooking oil and scoop the sticky dough into your bowl.
- Cover the bowl with a slightly damp tea towel and let the dough rise for approximately 2 hours until your dough has doubled in size. The timing is a rough approximation, you should judge it by the size, only removing the tea towel once the dough has doubled in size. Once the dough is ready, lightly dust a baking sheet with flour and set it to the side.
- Dust a solid flat work surface with flour, take the dough out of the bowl, place it on the floured surface and dust the top of the dough with flour too. Use a rolling pin and gently roll the dough out into a rough circle that should be about ½ inch thick. Be careful whilst rolling out your dough as it can easily become too thin, you should carry out this step gently. Make sure that you are using plenty of flour on the top and bottom, loosening the dough as you roll to keep it from sticking to the worktop surface and rolling pin.
- Before using your cookie cutter, dip it into flour very lightly and then starting at the outer edge of your dough, cut a circle by pushing the cookie cutter down firmly whilst twisting it slightly.
- When each circle has been cut, remove it from the larger dough circle, scoop it up with a small spatula, and gently place it on the flour sheet that you prepared in step 7. When the dough no longer has room for circles, re-roll it to ½ inch thickness and begin to cut circles again; you should repeat this process until you have cut as many circles as possible from the dough.
- Lightly dust the top of your circles with flour and cover them gently with a clean dry tea towel and allow them to rise for a further 45 minutes.
- While the sufganiyot are rising, add roughly 280g of your chosen jam to a squeeze bottle. If your chosen jam contains chunks of fruit or seeds, you will need to run it through a strainer before adding it to the bottle in order to ensure that it squeezes smoothly into the sufganiyot.
- If you are straining your jam, you will need to roughly double the amount (560g) to end up with the proper amount of strained jam.
- In a 4.73 litre sauté pan or 5.67 litre pot, heat your drying oil to 162℃ using a deep-fry thermometer to measure the heat. Be cautious to not overheat the oil or you will run the risk of cooking the outside of your sufganiyot whilst the inside remains raw. The oil should be bubbling very lightly before you add the sufganiyot. Using a small spatula or flat knife, transfer the circles of dough one at a time into the hot oil, flipping them gently as you place them in the oil so that the puffy side is facing downward into the oil. You can transfer up to 4 circles at a time into the oil.
- Allow the circles of dough to fry for roughly 90 seconds until they are a beautiful golden brown colour on the bottom. Gently flip the sufganiyot on the other side for another 90 seconds until they are nicely browned on both sides. If your oil cools it might take slightly longer than 90 seconds on each side.
- Once your sufganiyot have been fried and are golden brown, transfer them to a wire rack or baking sheet lined with parchment paper to drain the sufganiyot of oil. Continue frying the sufganiyot in batches of 4 until all of them have been cooked.
- Once your sufganiyot has cooled slightly, you can now start the filling process – the sufganiyot can be slightly warm, but should not still be hot. Use a straw to tunnel into each sufganiyot which will create a narrow hole in the top centre of the pastry.
- Use your squeeze bottle to squeeze the jam into the centre of each sufganiyot until the jam slightly overflows the hole in the centre.
- Dust each of the sufganiyot prior to serving them. For the best results, pour the powdered sugar into a mesh strainer and gently dust each sufganiyot with powdered sugar and the jam dots in the centre will soak up the sugar, leaving you with a nice dollop of jam in a couple of minutes.
- Now you’ve completed all of your hard work, it’s time to dig in. Sufganiyot are best served fresh as the powdered sugar will soak into the doughnut over time making it appear soggy. If you would like to save a sweet treat or two to eat at a later date, I recommend freezing them just after you have fried them but before filling them with jam. When ready to serve the frozen sufganiyot, defrost them completely and fill with jam and dust with powdered sugar.