What are Sufganiyot?
Clip: Special | 3m 21sVideo has Closed Captions
Geoffrey visits a bakery to learn about sufganiyot.
Geoffrey Baer visits North Shore Kosher Bakery to learn about sufganiyot, fried jelly donuts eaten at Hanukkah.
What are Sufganiyot?
Clip: Special | 3m 21sVideo has Closed Captions
Geoffrey Baer visits North Shore Kosher Bakery to learn about sufganiyot, fried jelly donuts eaten at Hanukkah.
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All this debate is making me hungry again.
So I headed over to North Shore Kosher Bakery to sample another fried Hanukkah treat that I never heard of as a kid.
This is second generation owner, Ayellet Benezra.
And how do you tell people to pronounce your name?
- I say, "I yell it, you scream it."
Ayellet showed me how they make sufganiyot.
- Sufganiyot is plural.
- Plural, singular is sufganiyah.
- Sufganiyah - Sufganiyah is basically a donut.
Fried dough.
We go to sufganiyot because you can't just eat one, so you don't buy just one sufganiya.
So you take like a special dough that you have a special recipe that has all the, you know, amazing, delicious ingredients in it.
And you mix the dough, you divide it up, you roll it up with by hand.
Here, we do everything by hand, and then you fry it.
- The baker uses a wooden dowel to carefully flip each donut, bringing both sides to a perfect golden brown.
Whoops, that one's not quite ready.
How many of these are you making over the course of Hanukkah?
- We turn probably around 20,000, you know, maybe 25,000 during Hanukkah.
- 25,000!
- Yeah.
- And, and every one of those is made by hand?
- Everything is made by hand.
And then we take a dowel and we punch holes in them.
- Right?
- And you'll see they're super soft - Here.
Okay, I want to do that.
- Yeah.
- Little hole punching here.
Oh yeah.
You gotta kind of hold them down.
You gotta hold.
Can you imagine making 20,000 of these?
Holy smokes!
This is a, uh, kosher instrument.
Next up the filling.
- Hold the bag.
- So sufganiyot are always filled donuts?
- Yes.
- Right there.
And it's not as easy as it looks.
- Punch.
- So punch it in.
Nice.
- Jews have been eating sufganiyot on Hanukkah for hundreds of years.
The donuts used to be filled with savory ingredients like mushrooms or meat.
- Lucky they're not gonna sell any of these!
But in the 1500s, the price of sugar fell and European Jews began filling their sufganiyot with sweetened fruit preserves, just like the sweet treats we're making today.
- There we go.
- There you go.
Somebody get 'em an apron.
The traditional filling is raspberry.
And then we also make chocolate, custard, and caramel.
- Chocolate.
- Chocolate.
- So you just, just shake, you just shake it.
Lastly, they're dusted with powdered sugar and enjoyed.
- Now this has got a surprise inside you.
You know, - I'm a chocoholic.
- I am too.
Okay.
I, I'm only doing this, you know, for, for my job.
That is so good.
It's really wonderful.
- It's my dad's recipe.
So very special.
Definitely different from any other bakery that you would go to.
- They're so delicious and so plentiful.
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