Sufganiyot - fried jelly donuts recipe

I have a confession to make - this may come as a surprise.

I used to hate baking.

I know. I KNOW!

I always said I was a cook because you could really use your instincts, read a recipe, and then go along as you do it to make it your own. I know a lot of people, like my very dear friend Jaren, who is an excellent cook, have different approaches and follow recipes. I just can't do it.

Well, I would always say I hated baking because I didn't like following the instructions. But I slowly transitioned, and learned to love it. Now yeast is an every day ingredient for me, and I can make OMG cookies in any variation with my eyes closed.

So with this newfound love of baking, I decided to take on several things at once I never would have all in one "recipe" - fried jelly donuts!
Yeast!
Deep frying!
Stuffing with Jelly!

Challege Accepted.

I made these during Chanukah - food fried in oil is a tradition because the Maccabees found enough oil for one night, and it miraculously lasted for 8.

I looked at recipes and decided to go off of this one from food.com.

I adjusted a bit by adding some whole wheat flour (not that I was trying to healthify something so unhealthy, I'm not delusional, I was just low on a/p flour).

I also used butter instead of margarine. In a lot of Jewish recipes, you will see the use of margarine or oil - this is because it makes the recipe "parve" aka, not meat or dairy. Therefore, you can eat them with most meals and it would still be kosher. Since I am 0% kosher, I used butter.

Also, I don't buy yeast packets, I just buy a jar and measure it.

1 package of yeast is usually a 1/4 ounce, which is 2 and a quarter teaspoons of yeast. Viola!

So with adjustments here are the ingredients:
4.5 teaspoons of dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water (I use a meat thermometer to make sure it's around 100 degrees)
3/4 cup sugar (when I adjusted I used 1 cup and it was better)
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
6 tbs softened or melted (but not hot) butter (unsalted)
2 cups whole wheat flour
3 cups a/p flour (when I adjusted I used all ap flour and it was better)
lots of vegetable oil to deep fry
fruit jelly
powdered sugar for sprinkling on top

Directions:
1. Sprinkle your yeast into the water, and let sit for about 5 minutes.
2. In order, add sugar, eggs, and butter, and mix.
3. Mix your flours and salt in a separate dish, and add in to your dough.
4. Knead your dough using your dough hook for about 5 minutes. Let sit about an hour.
5. Roll out your dough, and use anything with a circular edge (cookie scoop, small cup, etc) to form circles of it. Place them on lined cookie sheets, cover with a towel, and let rise for another 30 minutes.
I used pam to make sure it didn't stick.



(I used a cookie scoop because I wanted to make small donuts for a bunch of people, but really any size will do).

Here is where I messed up the first batch, and fixed it on the second batch.
What you SHOULD do it this:
6. Bake your donuts at 350 for about 20 minutes.
7. Take them out of your oven, and THEN deep fry them for about 1-2 minutes on each side.
8. Once you take all the donuts out to cool on your lined cookie sheets, either use a food injector (this is how you do it in israel!!) or slice a small crevice with a knife. Fill with good quality jelly.

Let me talk for a second about a good quality jelly. You can buy an amazing fried donut, and if it's artificial, yucky, lazy cheap style jelly, and not good quality preserves, it will just not be authentic. It will be good, but not great. Get some good preserves, and it makes a huge difference.

9. Once they are all stuffed, I use one of those fine metal strainers that you can use for sifting to tap powdered sugar all over the donuts.



These were pretty good, but the next batch I made I used a bit more sugar and all ap flour - much better!

By the way, the next morning I could smell the fried oil from my bedroom (with the door closed), so you may want to open your windows and use some air freshener if that smell grosses you out. It reminded me of the parking garage at my college, which was over a McDonalds!