I made a huge promise to myself and Zeevik a couple of years ago not to sell Jelly Doughnuts at Hanukkah. There was one year, when Ella was 6 months old, when I fried over 1,500 doughnuts in a week. At home. With my KitchenAid home mixer and my big deep frying pan. It was a memorable experience (actually a nightmare of experience) and we agreed not to do it again…
Ever since, I’ve been frying only for our family’s 8 days of candle lighting celebrations (and for some friends…). Around 800 doughnuts in 8 days. Easy Pizzy…Although this year, I should have rented a place and fried and sold them (someone was frying and selling 6 doughnuts for $48!!! And people bought! )
Anyways, my friend Shuli suggested we host a Hanukkah celebration for the Israeli families at school. I suggested hosting the whole school. She agreed. Yes, there are people as crazy as I am 🙂
We organized some fun Hanukkah activities. The day before the event Zeevik had an hour to kill, so I asked him to build a big Menorah. Some parents bought sticklights and dreidels, some parents brought Hanukkah decorations, and I fried 200 doughnuts…. Did we say crazy????
It ended up being a pretty cool event. About 70 kids and 70 adults mingled, playing, creating crafts, listening to the Hanukkah story, singing Hanukkah songs and lighting many many Menorahs. A great sense of community 🙂
After the event ended, Theresa texted me: “Jay says your doughnuts are better than Ray’s (his dad). Can I get the recipe?” – I blushed 🙂 and immediately fried 15 doughnuts and delivered them to Theresa. But, Yes, I will give you the recipe 🙂
So… It's not that I specialize in sweets. I do not. But when I am given a culinary task – I try to stick to it, and that's how it was with the donuts. I tried and in the end I came up with my favorite recipe – originally the recipe was "classic donuts filled with rhubarb jam" by Rafi Cohen (it’s in Hebrew, so I won;t send you to read the original post).
Here is the recipe, conclusions and comments. Hope it works for everyone (and if not, next year I will already have an industrial mixer and a huge fryer and you can order again :-))
Doughnut Recipe (by Rafi Cohen):
Flour: 1 kg – 7 cups of flour (it's 980 grams, good enough), the most ordinary and simple flour there is
180 grams of sugar – 1 cup minus 1 tablespoon
5 egg yolks (preserve the egg whites and make them into schnitzel or meringue)
100 grams of soft butter – If you live in the US and work with butter fingers weighing 114 grams, do not bother to weigh 100 grams of butter, just put a whole finger (what is some more butter when you consider the fact that the doughnuts are deep fried ???)
1/2 tablespoon salt (important !!! Do not put at first, but only after 3 minutes the dough is mixed in a mixer)
4 tablespoons cognac (I replace the cognac with water, because kosher cognac is expensive here and also because I have no real interest in the children getting alcohol in their food)
1 tablespoon orange zest – the original recipe says 1 tablespoon, but I use a pinch of orange zest, as if you use a whole tablespoon, the doughnut tastes like orange cake
1 vanilla stick or 1 tablespoon real vanilla extract
50 grams of fresh yeast or 17 grams of dry yeast (the yeast that is sold at Costco in half-kilo packages)
2 and 1/2 cups lukewarm water
Doughnut Preparation Instructions:
Dissolve the yeast in half a cup of lukewarm water with a tablespoon of sugar and set aside for 20 minutes.
Put all the ingredients except the salt in a mixer bowl with a kneading hook, including the yeast solution, and operate on low speed for about 3 minutes.
Add the salt and continue to knead for another 4 minutes until a moist and flexible dough is obtained (you can knead with your hands, but why work yourself when there is a better solution which allows you to drink coffee).
Transfer the dough to a deep, wide bowl and cover with plastic wrap, place in a warm place and puff for about two hours.
Two hours later, push the dough with the palm of your hand to let all the air out, cover and puff for another hour.
Squeeze pieces of the dough the size of a ping-pong ball and roll them on a work surface that is floured with a little flour. Another option is to put a little oil on your hands and roll the dough into balls while covering the dough with oil.
Cut baking paper into pieces of 2inch X 2inch (you'll thank me for that when frying). Place the baking paper pieces on a tray about 1 inch apart.
Place the dough balls on the baking paper pieces. Cover the tray with plastic wrap that would not touch the doughnuts after they rise! Place the trays in a warm place and let the doughnuts rise for about an hour until they have doubled in volume.
Pour (canola oil) into a deep, wide pot at least 6-7 inch high and heat to 335-340 Fahrenheit degrees (170 Celsius).
Frying the doughnuts:
After the oil is hot, and you see that the temperature is stable and not changing all the time, carefully pickup a doughnut ball along with the baking paper and place it in the oil, with the baking paper on the top. Set a timer for 2 minutes. Gently push down one side of the doughnut and it will flip the other way around. Set the timer for another 2 minutes and use tongs to take the baking paper out of the oil. Fry for 2 minutes until the doughnuts are golden / browned and transfer to a tray lined with wiping paper.
Using a perfusion bag with a thin center or using dessert decorating tool (the thing that looks like a huge syringe), and fill the donuts with jam. Arrange them on a tray, sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve.
Comments and recommendations:
1. Doughnuts are not terribly difficult to make, just need to remember a few basic things:
– If you want to serve the donuts at eight in the evening, you need to start preparing the dough at three in the afternoon: two hours puffing into dough, taking out the air, puffing again for an hour, rolling doughnuts and puffing for another hour. If we add to it the time it takes to weigh, make the dough, roll and fry – it comes out to about 5 hours. In short, get ready in advance.
– The most important thing in donuts (after all the swelling issue) is to fry at a temperature between 330 and 350 Fahrenheit degrees. It's really worth investing in a thermometer. It’s worth spending $10 at Target, makes all the difference.
– No matter what the size of the doughnuts , assuming the temperature is right, fry for 2 minutes, give the donut a gentle caress and it turns over and then fry for another 2 minutes and the doughnuts are ready. The easiest part of the whole process….
2. For anyone who asked for the recipe in glasses – I gave, but, really, invest $20 in Amazon or Target and buy yourself a kitchen scale. Life is much simpler in weighing than in measuring in cups.
3. If working with dry yeast, you can simply put them in the mixture without letting them ferment with water and sugar (as in dry yeast). But I have found that the dough works better if the dry yeast is fermented as in fresh yeast.
4. When working with a Kitchen Aid mixer (shitty mixer, buy a Kenwood if you have the option), then it is better to process the dough in the first 3 minutes with the hook called "K", add the salt, remove the dough from the sides of the bowl and replace with the kneading hook. If you work constantly with a kneading hook the dough sticks to the sides and does not mix well and if you work constantly with "K" we will not have a kneading process and then the donuts will not rise properly.
5. When letting the dough rise in different stages it should be covered. I just put the bowl or tray I am working with in a large plastic bag (say a clean garbage bag) and inflate it so that a large air pocket is formed and then I close it with a clip. It's so warm there and cozy inside and nothing sticks to a towel or plastic wrap.
6. When rolling the donuts – do not feel pity for them, show them what tough love is. If you work with them gently, there will be air bubbles in the rising phase and then the doughnuts will have a large air bubble. If the bubble bursts, a lot of oil enters the doughnuts (so do not be tempted to blow it up, let it stay and it will come off by itself later).
When rolling, it is important to constantly push the dough from the bottom with the toe, so that there is no hole in the bottom – it puts a lot of oil into the donut.
Dimensions and weights for donut sizes:
– 60 gram balls – a huge donut comes out, children will never finish it, adults can finish almost everything and then grumble that it is a lot of calories. (31 donuts per 1 kilogram of flour).
– 45 grams balls – comes out a classic-sized donut, kids finish almost everything (leaving the last bite), adults finish everything and then grumble that it's lots of calories. (42 donuts per kilogram of flour).
– 35 grams balls – perfect size if you need to bring doughnuts to class. All the kids are happy they got something sweet during the day, the parents are not upset that the kids ate huge donuts and the teacher finishes everything and then grumbles that it is lots of calories. (55-60 donuts per kilogram of flour).
7. The frying stage is the most dangerous stage in terms of burns. I'm doing what I've seen Chef Oren Giron do with baking paper in the oil – makes it very, very easy to fry (and in general he did a nice job on these donuts….)
8. You can use any type of jam. I like to use jam with fruit inside and grind it until it becomes a sauce (I especially like the SMUCKERS jam with fruit that can be bought here at any supermarket).
For those who asked how I inject the jam inside, so two years ago I used a icing bag (and cursed every minute) and last year I invested $20 and bought myself a the cake decorating tool (the big syringe for decorating cakes) that works great with doughnuts
For those who asked how I make donuts with chocolate – then the answer is: I do not. It's annoying to work with chocolate. If the kids ask nicely, I just cut a small opening on the side of the doughnut with a knife and push chocolate in with a spoon.
9. Regarding advance preparation:
– I left the dough we made on Tuesday evening in the fridge until Friday and then divided it into two: one part I fried and brought as dessert for dinner at Ella and Ronen's. Was successful, no complaints were heard from the audience and very few donuts remained.
The second part, I rolled into small doughnuts and froze them. I took it out of the freezer to the fridge for 12 hours and then for another hour and a quarter out of the fridge. I fried it and let the Zeevik taste it. The conclusion was that it was delicious, but the shell of the donuts was a little more "crunchy" than the regular doughnuts (I guess it has to do with the fact that the donuts absorb some water in the freezing and unfreezing process). In addition, there were small bubbles that damaged the donuts' grace a little.
Conclusion – you can freeze and thaw and fry…
(At the same time, I must admit that I still prefer doughnuts that have not undergone a process of long-term cooling, freezing, thawing or any other process not included in the original recipe, and especially, those that have just come out of the oil.
That's who I am not days – the queen of donut perfectionism)
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This is it! Although a lot has been written here, it's really quite simple. Just need to overcome the basic fear of doughnuts and remember that anyone who does not make donuts themselves, marvels at the fact that you made it yourself and did not buy it, even if it comes out in the form of an alien..
(This is the place to tell a family anecdote… When I was in second or third grade we prepared a different type of doughnuts for my class or my sister’s class’s Hanukkah party. That type of doughnut created an uneven shape that is very similar to an alien. When my father arrived at the party he told my sister: "Do not eat from these donuts, they look spoiled to me…")