Doughnut

The eight days of Hanukkah, the Jewish celebration of lights, honor the sacred lamp in the Holy Temple, which burned for eight days even though it only contained enough oil for one. Traditionally, many Hanukkah foods celebrate the oil in addition to the light. One of the most common is the jelly doughnut, known as sufganiyah. The word derives from the Hebrew word for "sponge," an apt description for the texture of the doughnuts. I think they are more accurately "pillowy."

These doughnuts are insanely moist. I promise you, they melt in your mouth. My friends can never get enough of them. This cake doughnut recipe is very simple to make. I store the doughnuts glazed in the freezer for sugar-craving moments. Once the doughnuts are fried, they can be glazed with Coconut Glaze or any other glaze you like, or dusted with superfine sugar.

Donettes are tiny little rounds of deliciousness that really don't bear that much resemblance to bakery doughnuts but are somehow still satisfying. You can make your own in a flash with the aid of a mini doughnut pan. While it may seem strange, the addition of rye and barley flours into the batter makes for an exceptionally flavorful treat. To make Chocolate Mini Cake Doughnuts, simply add two tablespoons of cocoa powder to the flour mixture.

Editor's note: This recipe is part of a special Thanksgiving menu created by chefs Allison Vines-Rushing and Slade Rushing of MiLa restaurant in New Orleans. While traditional beignets are on the must-have list of every New Orleans tourist, we personally think flavor-wise they can be a bit one note. This version, however, is sweet and savory with a spicy dipping sauce. The addition on coconut and shrimp honor the Carribean persuasions of New Orleans cuisine.

Everyone loves doughnuts, so it didn’t surprise me when these bombolini, Italian for “little doughnuts,” turned out to be the most popular dessert at the Osteria. You’re likely to find some version of sweet fried dough in every Italian region. That said, ours is made with a brioche-style dough that’s fried to order and served with a berry marmellata, or compote, and lemon curd—not at all Italian, but reminiscent of jelly doughnut combinations that Americans know and love. For the marmellata, we use mountain huckleberries from Oregon; you can use blueberries, blackberries, or boysenberries, or a combination—as you like.

If you do not have a doughnut cutter, use a 3-inch cookie cutter to cut out the doughnuts and a 1-inch cookie cutter to cut out the centers.

These are best eaten slightly warm.

If your only impression of a zeppole was formed at a street fair, where they are served hot out of the oil and dusted with powdered sugar, prepare to have your socks knocked off. With these you get your doughnut and coffee all in one delectable bite.

In the world of fresh pastry, few things are quicker than churros, the crisp, crullerlike strips of fried dough that are still popular in Spain, where they originated, but perhaps even more so in Mexico. In fact, there are few breakfast or last-minute late-night snacks that can match a batch of churros. Churros served at restaurants can be awful because they’re fried in stale oil and made in advance. But make them fresh once, for breakfast or dessert (ideally, you’ll serve them with Chocolate Español, page 665, or Mexican Hot Chocolate, page 664) and you will have a reliable addition to your repertoire.

Loukoumades are served across Greece and Cyprus, with a wide range of garnishes. I’ve suggested honey and cinnamon because they’re a simple, delicious, and authentic combination. But you could add a sprinkling of chopped pistachios or a dusting of confectioners’ sugar or even substitute the syrup used in making Baklava (page 628) for the honey.

Every region of Italy makes some form of these fried dough pastries called zeppole. They can be sweet or savory, with goodies embedded in the dough or stuffed after frying. Zeppole are especially prepared for St. Joseph’s Day (March 19), during Lent, for the Christmas Vigilia (Eve), and on holidays. When sweet, they are usually dusted with powdered sugar and served hot. You can find them in every Little Italy in the United States around the holidays.

This is the best and easiest way to get your jelly donut fix without pulling out a pastry bag or developing some other fancy-but-messy stuffing procedure. I specifically use sugar for this recipe because I think it holds the jam together nicely, and I prefer to finish it with powdered sugar.

If you have ever tried to make homemade doughnuts, you know that the process can be a bit of a hassle. But transforming store-bought biscuit dough into delicious golden doughnuts could not be easier, seriously. The slightly crunchy texture of fried dough dusted with anise sugar is a perfect complement to tangy orange marmalade.

Zeppole are little doughnuts that are sold on the street in Naples and at street fairs. They are usually served with a simple dusting of powdered sugar, but the combination of chocolate and orange in this version is just to die for. Eat these warm, because they become heavy and doughy once they cool (if they stay around that long!).

Gina: Light, delicate, and full of flavor, homemade doughnuts are a true indulgence, one that’s worthy of a holiday, a birthday breakfast, or any other special occasion (“Look mom, all A’s!”). This recipe takes a bit of advance work, to prepare the dough and allow it to rise, but it’s a fun project to do with your kids. And the maple icing makes it difficult to eat just one.

The tang of these doughnuts provides an excellent counterpoint to the cinnamon sugar that coats them. Beware; these doughnuts tend to disappear quickly, especially if there are people in the kitchen when they emerge from the fryer. The doughnuts can also be dipped in warm ganache made with equal parts chocolate and cream. We’ve even been known to turn these into bomboloni by filling them with vanilla pastry cream and serving them with chocolate dipping sauce. Lemon curd or good jelly, perhaps lightened with a little whipped cream, are also nice fillings. A little caramel sauce is never an unwelcome accompaniment, whether the doughnuts are stuffed or plain. But really, the cinnamon sugar does pretty well all by itself. Warm doughnuts are one of life’s special pleasures, and once you experience them, you’ll want to make these again and again.

When the writter Marcel Proust was a little boy, he played a game with Jeanne Weil, his mother. She would read one line from her favorite play, Esther by Racine, and Marcel would read the next. In the play, the Jewess Esther marries Ahasuerus, the good king of Persia. Proust’s mother also married a non-Jew, a Catholic doctor named Achille Proust. Madame Proust’s love of Esther may have extended beyond the text— a favorite sweet was these doughnuts from her childhood, eaten by Jews at Purim, which celebrates Queen Esther. The doughnuts are the same as the beignets de Carnaval eaten by Catholics around the same time of year, just before Lent. These doughnuts and Butterkuchen (see page 351) probably evoked more memories for Proust than did the madeleine dunked in tea in the fictional Swann’s Way. Curiously enough, in an early version of the opening pages of the manuscript, the madeleines were biscottes (dry toast, zwieback, or rusks). The change to madeleines was made later by Proust.

In North Africa, sfendj, also called khfaf, are sold by street vendors. People buy them for breakfast. They can be plain or with raisins. Eat them hot as soon as they are done or reheat in the oven. Serve them with honey or dusted with sugar.

Bomboloni—small round Italian doughnuts—is almost as much fun to say as they are to eat. It's like a party in your mouth when you repeat the word, which you will be doing over and over between bites of these balloon-light spheres of the tenderest yeast dough. Bomboloni are the new hot item on restaurant menus these days, and you'll instantly understand why when you taste your first. It won't be your last, that's for sure, which is why we've accompanied them with three different sauces for dipping. Each is delightful on its own, but if you want to go all the way with all three, you'll find they play well together, too.

Brace yourself for an unbelievably adorable, moist, and perfectly sweet donut that will leave you breathless and endlessly happy. We're going to bake them, not deep-fry them! If you're OK with sugar, this should be your go-to recipe, as it yields a fantastically crispy outside that secures the light, pillowy inside. The donut here is shown with the cinnamon sugar topping .

For years before I opened Flour, I had a notebook where I kept menu ideas for when I finally had my own dream bakery. It was filled with all of the pastries I had read about in cookbooks, learned to make at my jobs, and savored on my travels. When it came time to write a menu for the bakery, I realized it was impossible to include everything I wanted to offer. These doughnuts barely made the cut. After all, we were opening less than a block away from an outpost of the ubiquitous Dunkin' Donuts chain. But they ended up being a Flour best-seller. I first learned how to make doughnuts at Payard. A French pastry chef taught me how to make doughnuts that make Americans swoon, though they scarcely resemble what you get at the competition down the street. We only make them on Sundays, and they sell out every week.

Like many delicious treats, this preparation takes a bit of time and planning. You can speed up the process of proofing the dough if you leave the dough covered at room temperature for an hour or so, instead of letting it rest in the refrigerator overnight.

Up until I was about 12 years old, my parents took my sister, Tracy, and me to Easter service at St. Louis Cathedral in Jackson Square. The only way they could keep us in check during mass was by bribing us to be good and quiet with promises of post-church beignets at Café de Monde across the street. We'd get so excited about the prospect of massive quantities of sugar that we probably would have done pretty much anything to ensure we got beignets before going home. Mom was a bit of a stickler when it came to sweets; I mean, at our house, Raisin Bran® was considered toeing the line of junk food! So you can only imagine how amped up we were at the mere prospect of real, honest-to-goodness fried dough piled sky-high with a mountain of powdered sugar. Like good southern kids we were dressed to the nines—me in my blue blazer, khakis, and white oxfords, Tracy in her Easter dress—and Mom, like all the proper matriarchs, with an Easter hat perched on her head that has a wingspan of at least 18 inches. No sooner had the crispy-fried beignets arrived than our holiday best was coated in a dusting of white powder, as it was our tradition to see who could blow the snowy confectioners' sugar off of the mountain of beignets and onto the other the quickest. After we'd made a complete mess of ourselves, we'd get down to business and devour our crispy-fried beignets, still hot from the fryer and so amazingly tender.