I don’t usually deep fry anything, so the idea of homemade sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts) is a bit daunting to me. Last year I attempted to make zeppolis on chanukah by using the premade Trader Joes pizza dough. It didn’t quite come out right.

Tonight I used the recipe from Claudia Roden’s The Book of Jewish Food. If you ever wanted to buy a Jewish cookbook, this is the cookbook you must buy. More useful than the well-thumbed “purple cookbook,” Spice and Spirit , tastier and better stories than any of Joan Nathan’s treasures.

Here is her recipe

Soufganioth by Claudia Roden, The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York

1 tsp. dried yeast
1/4 c. lukewarm milk or water

2 tbsp. sugar
1 whole egg

1 egg yolk

3 tbsp. sour cream or oil
A pinch of salt
2 or 3 drops vailla extract
1 2/3 c. flour, plus more if necessary
Oil for deep-frying – **cringe**
Apricot, red-currant, or raspberry jam

Confectioner’s sugar for sprinkling

Dissolve the yeast in warm water or milk with 1 tsp of sugar and leave for 10 minutes or until it froths.

Beat the rest of the sugar with the egg and the yolk. Add the sour crem or oil, the salt, vanilla, and the yeast mixture, and beat very well. Fold in the flour gradually, and continue beating until you have a soft, smooth, and elastic dough, adding more flour if necessary. Then knead for 5 minutes, sprinkling with a flour if it is too sticky. Coat the dough with oil by pouring a drop in the bowl and turning the dough in it.

Cover the bowl with and leave in a warm place to rise for about 2 hours, or until doubled in bulk.

Knead the dough again for a few minutes, then roll out on a floured surface with a floured rolling pin to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut 2 inch rounds….Put a teaspoon of jam in the center of the dough round. Brush the rim with a little water to make it sticky and cover with another round. Press the edges together to seal. Continue with the rest of the rounds and arrange them on a floured tray. Leave them to rise for about 30 minutes.

Heat 1-1/2 inches of oil in a saucepan to medium hot. Drop in the doughnuts, a few at a time. Fry in the oil for 3-4 minutes with the lid, until brown, then turn and fry the other side 1 minute more. Drain on paper towels. Sprinkle with the confectioners’ sugar.

Eat them while they are still warm.

The variation on this, is to fry a thicker round of plain dough – about a 1/2 inch thick – when it is cool enough to handle, cut a small slit and inject the jam into the doughnut.

I tried both methods. I preferred the jam-injected donut to the 2-piece donut. I do need to play around with dough thickness and cooking time. All in all, it was an easy recipe and a good start…