I’ve posted my doughnut recipe a couple of times before, and it’s been very popular. We make this recipe every year, and I was reminded to share it again with you tonight when I looked it up for my own use!
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We’ve been here for eleven years and my family still finds the local Israeli doughnuts a big disappointment. The traditional sufganiyot are heavy balls of dough with dabs of industrial jelly inside and none of us enjoy them.
I was inspired to find a better option when we made aliyah and were missing the familiar flavor of Dunkin Donuts. These aren’t a replica but they’re quite good!
Avivah’s Fantastic Glazed Doughnuts
- 2 1/4 t. dry yeast
- 2 T. warm water
- 3/4 c. warm milk (you can use water, coconut milk or nut milk)
- 2 1/2 T. butter (or coconut oil or palm shortening)
- 1 egg
- 1/3 c. sugar
- 1 t. salt
- 2 3/4 c. flour
In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast in the small amount of warm water. Add the milk (or substitute), butter, egg, sugar, and salt. Blend this until it’s smooth.
Add the remaining flour and knead until the dough is smooth. Cover the bowl with a plastic bag and leave it to rise until the dough has doubled, about 1/2 – 1 hour. Punch the dough down, and roll out a half inch thick.
Use a cup or biscuit cutter (or even a clean empty can) to cut out the doughnuts. If you want to make the doughnuts with the traditional hole in the middle, use a shot glass or similar sized object to cut out the holes. (The holes will later become donut holes.) One year a blog reader suggested cutting them into squares, which is a big timesaver.
Place these on cookie sheets and let them rise for about 30 – 60 minutes. Fry in a pot of hot oil (I use palm shortening or coconut oil for this), thirty seconds on each side. (Adding a piece of carrot to the oil will keep it from getting dark.) These will fluff up beautifully as they fry. When the donuts cool, dip the top of the surface in glaze and let cool.
Glaze:
- 1/3 c. butter (or coconut oil or palm shortening)
- 2 c. powdered sugar
- 1/2 t. vanilla
- 1/3 c. hot water
Mix all of these ingredients for a plain glaze. If you’d like to make a chocolate glaze, melt one cup of semisweet chocolate chips and mix it in to the above glaze. Make the glaze when the doughnuts are ready to be frosted, because as it cools off, it becomes harder to use and will lose the glossiness you can see above in the picture.
You can fill these with the filling of your choice (jam, chocolate, pudding), and then add a glaze, or glaze them without filling them. We like to keep it simple and generally make chocolate glazed doughnuts. They’ll be delicious however you make them!
Happy Chanukah!
Avivah
Very timely for me! I had my doughnuts but was looking for a glaze. This was so easy , and pretty.
I didn’t bother melting the chocolate chips seperately – I put everything into a small pot and heated it while stirring for a couple of minutes.
Glad to hear that it worked out well for you, Kaila, and thanks for sharing your experience on melting everything together!
I always use this recipe on Chanuka! I came to your blog to search for it, and was delighted to find that there was no need for the search! Thank you for reposting, and thank you for the recipe – it is delicious!
I’m so glad to hear that you’ve been using it, Esther, and glad it was easy to find this year!
Thanks for sharing! Are you able to use gluten-free flour for this? Like almond or gluten free oat or Teff? Chanukah Samayach!
I haven’t used gluten free flour for these, but would think the oat flour would work well. The almond flour has a different consistency and it’s so expensive that I wouldn’t want you to experiment and it not to work out. And I’ve only used teff once so I really don’t have enough experience to say one way or another!
Thanks, next time I will try the oat flour. I never used teff, but have it in my house – I think it’s the flour in Ethiopian injira bread so I need to be careful with it with my kids’ palates. I ended up making the doughnuts with spelt and definitely didn’t do it right, as they didn’t come out fluffy – although 2 of my family members liked them anyway. The glaze came out very well – and no one noticed I used coconut oil!
Thank you for the recipe!
Approx how many doughnuts does this make?
I made the recipe – came out delicious! The amounts it yielded for me were 6 large doughnuts and 7 medium sized sufganiyot.
Thank you for updating for the quantities, Shani!
What a great recipe! We made it twice!
I used raw milk and butter, and fried in avocado oil. Coconut oil is too strong for our taste. Has anyone tried maple syrup or honey instead of sugar?
I’m so glad you enjoyed it, ZC!
We use processed coconut oil that doesn’t have the coconut flavor and smell.
Honey works great, too – you have to reduce the flour a bit to keep the consistency from being sticky. I’ve never tried maple syrup for these but assume it would be the same as honey.