Doughnuts with Strawberry-Vanilla Filling

⏳ Time

25 minutes + 1 day

🥕 Ingredients

🍽️ Servings

Description

On the morning before Hanukkah, American cafes and bakeries display trays of golden sufganiyot doughnuts. It's a feast for the eyes — the fluffy balls are covered in chocolate or sugar glaze, adorned with nuts and powdered sugar, and filled with some kind of sweet filling: jam, whipped cream, or buttercream. The tradition of baking 'yeast dough' (which is what sufganiyot translates to) for Hanukkah is believed to have originated among German and Polish Jews back in the 17th century. During times of persecution, brave women would prepare sufganiyot, risking their freedom and even their lives, as unlike European pastries, these were fried in oil — the scent and smoke from the frying could alert hostile onlookers. Thus, this seemingly innocent (though not calorie-wise) festive treat has a heroic past.

Ingredients

Milk - 3 fl oz
Butter - 2.8 oz
Vanilla Pod - 1 piece
Wheat Flour - 1.8 oz
Chicken Egg - 1 piece
Strawberry - 7.1 oz
Pectin - 1.1 oz
Gelatin - 1 piece

Step by Step guide

Step 1

The day before, clean the strawberries and dice them into small cubes. Cook them in a saucepan over low heat with 30 g of sugar for 10 minutes, then add fruit pectin and cook for another 10–15 minutes. Once cooking is complete, add the gelatin that has been soaked in cold water and squeezed dry. Refrigerate overnight to allow the mixture to cool thoroughly.

Step 2

The next day, bring milk with butter and the seeds scraped from a vanilla pod to a gentle simmer in a saucepan. Allow it to simmer for 10 seconds, then remove the saucepan from the heat and, while stirring vigorously, add the flour. Incorporate the lightly beaten egg. Place a small amount of the dough into each of the half-moon molds. Press with your thumb to make the dough cover the walls of the molds.

Step 3

Spoon the strawberry filling into the indentation of each doughnut mold. Cover the filling with the remaining dough and freeze.

Step 4

Heat vegetable oil to 180 °C. To check if the oil is hot enough, drop in one doughnut: it should start frying immediately. Remove the doughnuts from their molds and fry them straight from the freezer in the oil until golden brown. Take them out, let the excess oil drain, coat in granulated sugar, and serve immediately.