The Many Lives
of a Sufganiyah:
Celebrating Doughnut Diversity
for Chanukah
“G SASHA ROGELBERG | JE STAFF
efüllte krapfen” isn’t exactly a German phrase that whets one’s appetite.

In fact, the Hebrew “sufganiyot” rolls off the tongue much more smoothly.

But each word conjures the same culinary meaning: enriched dough stuff ed
generously with fi lling and fried to golden-brown perfection.

Around this time of year, whatever you call these fried confections, consuming them
is a mitzvah, their hot oil bath representative of the oil that sustained the lit menorah for
eight days, instead of one.

With an abundance of names for fried fritters comes an abundance of variations, each
with its own history.

Th e ideal sufganiyot, according to Philadelphia-based food writer Aliza Green, is fried
in fresh, clean oil, yielding a puff ed, yeasted dough that is both light and airy but with a
chew. “It’s kind of contradictory, but that’s what makes it really delicious,” she said.

U.S. Jews are mostly purists when it comes to sufganiyot, Green said, preferring classic
fl avors year aft er year. She enjoys the fried bread’s richness cut with the acidity of straw-
berry or raspberry jam, as is traditionally found in U.S. bakeries through the month of
Kislev. Th ough a familiar confection in the U.S., jelly doughnuts emigrated — as many Jews
did — from Germany and Poland, where a more savory and lean dough (sugar and milk
were too expensive to use for an enriched dough) was stuff ed with meat, fi sh, mushrooms
or cheese, Gil Marks wrote in “Th e Encyclopedia of Jewish Food.” In Polish, they were
called paczka or paczki; in Yiddish, they were ponchik or pontshke.

18 NOVEMBER 25, 2021
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Sebadas sandwich a cheese fi lling between thin, fried dough rounds. They are
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Courtesy of Getty Images
Th ough Eastern and Central Europe may be the birthplace of
what we recognize today as a jelly doughnut, fried dough enjoys
popularity around the world and has deep roots in Sephardic
traditions. Evidence of this is in the popularity of sufganiyot in Israel
— 45% of the population is Mizrahi or Sephardi according to
Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics — where variations of the
fi lled doughnut are much more common in the U.S. Th is is also
due to the abundance of potatoes in the U.S. that inspire another
Chanukah dish, taking the spotlight away from sufganiyot.

“We’re really more of a latke country than a sufganiyah
country,” Green said.

Sufganiyot gained renown in Israel in the 1920s, when trade
union Histadrut advocated for the production of the diffi cult-
to-make sufganiyot over rudimentary latkes, to provide enough
work for their laborers.

In Israel, sufganiyot are fi lled with milk caramel dulce de
leche and chocolate or vanilla pastry cream. Halva and coconut
fl akes decorate the tops of the doughnuts, Green remembered,
taking inspiration from across the region.

In Northern Africa, Moroccan Jews favor s’fi nj — a light,
spongy ring of dough — on Chanukah; Tunisian Jews eat yo-yos,
cakier fried rings soaked in orange blossom syrup and topped
with crunchy pistachios bits.

Fritters are common in Jewish cuisine in Italy, too, with each
pocket of the country having a variation on the doughnut.

In the Tuscan town of Pitigliano, known before World War II as
“Little Jerusalem” because of its robust Jewish population, frittelle
di Hanukkah were a common diamond-shaped fritter, dough
fl ecked with raisins, chopped fi gs or anise seeds, Green said.

Green also has a recipe for sebadas, Sardinian pastries stuff ed
Sufganiyot in the U.S. are most commonly fi lled with sweet raspberry or
strawberry jelly and sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Courtesy of Getty Images
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