Sufganiyot Muffins from Modern Domestic

by Jenna Huntsberger  Hanukkah started Wednesday, which means it’s time to dust off your favorite Hannukah recipes. Because Hannukah celebrates the miracle of the oil, the holiday usually features fried foods – latkes, fried potato pancakes, are the food of choice in the United States, and sufganiyot, fried jelly doughnuts, are the popular treat in Israel. Being a baker, I naturally gravitate to making sufganiyot – and, in fact, I did make them last year. But I’m not much of a deep fryer. I don’t have a fryer myself, and my attempts at frying the doughnuts in my four quart pot didn’t turn out so well – they were overcooked on the outside and barely cooked through. This year, I spared myself the pain, and made sufganiyot muffins instead. Doughnut muffins have been all the rage on the Internet for years,...

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Sufganiyot: The other Hanukkah treat

By Jenna Huntsberger Sufganiyot, aka jelly doughnuts, are Israel's Hanukkah food of choice. Before researching these fried confections, I thought that latkes were the traditional Hanukkah food the world round. After all, latkes are featured in every Hanukkah menu in all my food magazines - how is a shiksa like me to know otherwise? But no, latkes are actually an American favorite, while sufganiyot are more popular in Israel. Because Hanukkah officially celebrates the "miracle of oil" during the re-dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem after it was desecrated by the Syrians, fried foods are a common way to commemorate the holiday. The delicacies range from region to region - fried apple fritters, fried dough dipped in honey, and, of course, fried potato pancakes and deep-fried jelly doughnuts are all traditional Hanukkah fare. In a piece for the...

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