Hanukkah is the Jewish eight day winter time “Festival of Lights”. It is celebrated by a nightly lighting of candles, special prayers and the rather unhealthy tradition of eating fried foods.
The festival celebrates the “miracle” that the oil in the lamp in the Jerusalem Temple lasted for eight days instead of one. Fried foods are made and consumed to celebrate the Hanukkah miracle of the “elastic long lasting oil”. Fried potato latkes are the standard savoury from the pale of Eastern Europe, and the Sufganya (fried doughnut) is the jam filled sweet that children dream of and adults would be sensible to avoid.
The word Sufganya can be traced back to the Ancient Greek word Sufan meaning spongy or fried. The North African Jews called the Sufganya a “Sfinj” and Yemenite or Saudi Peninsular Jewish communities fried up what they called a “Zalabya”.
Sufganya:
Ingredients:
- Flour x 500 grams
- Sugar x 60 grams
- Dry yeast x 8 grams
- Baking enhancer x 8 grams (if you can find it)
- Butter x 30 grams
- Canola oil x 30 grams
- Egg x 1
- Egg yolk x 1
- Vanilla essence x 1 teaspoon
- Milk x 150 grams
- Salt x 5 grams
- Oil for frying.
- Confectioners sugar for dusting
- Jam for filling
Method:
Put flour, sugar, yeast, salt and baking enhancer into mixing bowl. Using the ‘hook’ attachment, mix for a couple of minutes. Mix milk, eggs, vanilla essence and oil together in a separate bowl, add this mixture to the flour a bit at a time. When dough has formed, add the butter and let mix on a medium speed for at least 7-8 minutes.
Set aside in mixing bowl and cover with Glad wrap. Let the dough rise to double its size before weighing out 50 gram (small) or 70 gram (regular) chunks. Roll each piece of dough into a tight ball and place onto well oiled baking paper to rise. Let rise until it doubles its size.
Heat canola oil 5-6 cm deep (deep fry) in pot until medium hot and once hot, place the first sufganya top down in the oil; flip when the bottom becomes golden brown. Adjust temperature of oil up or down as needed. Once you feel the oil temperature is just right, add two or three sufganya gently at a time. Once golden brown, remove to kitchen paper to soak up the excess oil and, using a fine sieve, sprinkle ample confectioners sugar over the top of the sufganya and then, using a very small piping nozzle with a piping bag nozzle gently inserted into the side of the sufganya, squeeze in a generous portion of jam, dolce de leche or your sticky poison of choice.
You will probably have to do a three hour workout to burn off the calories imbibed from this but once a year and once only it could be worth it.
Hanukkah Sameyach (Happy Hanukah)
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