Hanukkah-style jelly doughnuts aren't as hard to make as you'd think

Recipe books and cooking shows are filled with quick and convenient doughnut recipes, like light yogurt doughnuts, famous Haschel doughnuts, and even beer-infused doughnuts.

However, if you've decided to make classic jelly doughnuts from scratch this year and are worried about the mess, we have the perfect recipe for you.

Chen Mizrahi, the talented cook behind the blog Chen in the Kitchen, will guide you step by step towards achieving the perfect homemade doughnuts.

But be prepared to take your time and exercise patience, as creating the ideal doughnut requires it.

In addition, the recipe includes a small amount of alcohol, which enhances the dough's texture and gives the doughnuts a soft and rich taste. After all, this is a holiday of indulgence and extravagance.

Ingredients

For the doughnut dough:

500 grams flour

1 tablespoon dry yeast

¼ cup sugar (50 grams)

1 teaspoon salt

¼ cup oil

2 eggs

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

¾ cup water

1 tablespoon arak/vodka/brandy

1.5-2 liters oil for frying

Doughnut filling:

300 grams quality strawberry jam

Presentation:

Powdered sugar

Preparation

How do you make homemade doughnuts?

1. Prepare dough: Sift the flour into the mixer bowl. Add the dry yeast, sugar and salt. Using a kneading hook, mix the dry ingredients a little.

2. Add the oil, eggs, vanilla extract and water. Mix the dough on low speed for about 10 minutes.

3. Add the alcohol of your choice and knead for another 2 minutes until a very soft and slightly sticky dough is obtained.

4. Lightly grease a large bowl and transfer the dough to it. Cover with plastic wrap and let the dough rise for about an hour and a half to two hours, until the dough doubles in volume.

5. Make the doughnuts: Flour the work surface well. Take the dough out to the work surface and flour it on top as well. Roll out the dough to a thickness of 1.5-2 cm. Using a round cookie cutter with a diameter of 7 centimeters, cut out a circle of dough, pull it out immediately from the rolled dough and place it in a pan or tray lined with a baking sheet.

6. Continue like this and make all the rounds of dough and between winks dip the cutter in flour. When you finish making rounds, gather back all the leftover dough into a tight ball, cover with a towel and let it rest for 5 minutes. Repeat the same process again and again, rolling, cutting and placing in a tray with a space between each other, until there is no dough left.

7. Lightly flour the dough rounds on top, cover with a towel and leave to rise for about 40 minutes.

8. Meanwhile, put the strawberry jam into the squeeze bottle or into a piping bag with a thin nozzle. If the jam contains large pieces of strawberry, it must be passed through a strainer and then transferred to a bottle.

9. Frying: In a medium pot, heat oil over medium heat to a temperature of 160-170 degrees or until, when you insert an upside-down wooden spoon, there are small bubbles next to it. It is very important to fry on medium heat. If the oil is too hot, the doughnut will be cooked on the outside and raw on the inside.

10. Using a small spatula or a wide knife, gently transfer the rounds of dough into the oil with the side that was on top upside down, in the oil. Fry for about a minute and a half to two minutes on each side, until the doughnuts turn brown. Remove to a large tray lined with paper towel.

11. Filling: When you finish frying all the doughnuts, take a straw (or a pencil with the side with the eraser wrapped in cling film) and use it to create a hole inside the doughnut. Fill the doughnut with jam using the squeeze bottle, until the jam comes out a little from the hole you made. If the jam has difficulty coming out, heat the bottle with the jam for a few seconds in the microwave.

12. After the doughnuts have cooled completely, sprinkle powdered sugar on top (if freezing, do not sprinkle powdered sugar, only when taking out of the freezer).