The Perfect Soufganiyot
Don’t worry. I know you don’t want to know anything about me except how I make soufganiyot, those incredible donuts we eat every year at Hanukah. So I won’t bore you with my life story.
Here we go.
Bloom 1 packet of yeast in a mixture of 1 tbsp flour, 1 tbsp sugar, and 1/4 cup warm (at least room temperature) milk. It should take about five minutes before it’s bubbly and rich.
While you’re doing this, mix together 1 cup strawberry jam (or your favorite flavor) with 1/2 cup soft cream cheese. Ideally, you’d add this to a piping bag with a round tip. But if you don’t have one, anything with a point will do. A turkey baster, a medicine dropper, anything you can use to suck up a liquid and squirt it into a donut. If you really, really, really don’t have anything you can use to fill a donut, then you can make sandwich donuts. Change the measurements of your filling to 3/4 cup cream cheese and 3/4 cup jam and put it in the fridge so it isn’t runny once the donuts are ready to spread the filling on.
By this time, the yeast should be nice and bubbly. Add in 1/4 cup orange juice, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1/4 cup sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, and 2 eggs. Mix it all up until it’s smooth and uniform.
At this point, start adding 4 cups all-purpose flour. Springing for a high-gluten flour will give your donuts some extra structure, but it’s not necessary. Start by adding 2 cups, then once that’s thoroughly mixed and uniform, add another cup, and then another. You should wind up with a soft, sticky, and wildly fragrant dough. Let it rest and rise a bit for an hour; you might not get a huge rise, but that’s fine.
Once it’s rested, start heating your oil. I usually wind up using about 8 cups to a Dutch oven. What you want is to get it 3–4 inches deep, slightly deeper than…well, a soufganiyah. Heat it to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. If you don’t have a cooking thermometer, the oil will not have any more ripples on the base, and when you toss a tiny bit of dough in, will immediately bubble furiously. If it’s just little bubbles, it’s not ready. If it looks like you just added a cup of bubble bath, go wild.
While the oil heats, roll and cut your donuts. I don’t do anything fancy here — roll it out to about 1/2 inch thick, and then use an upside-down round glass to cut rounds. You can re-roll and re-cut the dough with no problem; just make sure it’s uniform and not flaky since that’ll make the dough come apart.
Fry your donuts only a couple at a time. My Dutch oven can handle about three. Fry the first side till it’s golden brown, then gently flip them over with your spatula or tongs and fry the other side to the same color. When they’re good, put them onto a cookie sheet lined with a towel to dry and drain.
Once they’re all fried and cool enough to handle, poke the tip of your pastry bag or equivalent into the top center of the donut and gently fill it.
And that’s it!
Alright, here’s my life story…
No, still kidding. Go eat your donuts.
