Sfenj - Perfection in the Imperfection

Whoever decided that fried food was the way to commemorate the miracle of the oil on Hanukkah has my sincerest thanks. Thank you for latkes, thank you for sufganiyot, and thank you for sfenj! Sfenj is the older, Maghrebi (Northwest African) cousin of the sufganiyah, or donut, as many know it. The two actually share the same root in Hebrew, meaning a spongy dough, but their similarities don’t run much deeper than that. Both the consistency of the two doughs, as well as the end results in the presentation of the two donuts, are quite different.

To make an Instagram-worthy sufganiyah, you first prepare a yeast dough, which needs to be stiff enough to cut into circles once risen. These circles can’t be too thick though because they’ll end up fried outside and raw inside. Getting it right is a major accomplishment, and I sincerely mean this is an accomplishment. Once it cools down enough to handle, most bakers will fill it with jam, using a piping bag with a special tip, or a baking syringe. Then you can dust the pastry with powdered sugar before serving. The more gourmet chefs among us will go out of their way to make the sufganiyot a feast for both eyes and mouths. Aside from jam, they will use chocolate, cookie butter, pudding, and more as filling for the donut. Then they might decorate the donut with glazes and toppings that look almost too pretty to eat.

In the past, the price tag of these fancy fried fritters had encouraged me to try my hand at making my own at home. Most times they don’t come out perfect, the way a sufganiyah is “supposed” to be. More than once they ended up raw inside, and the frustration still lingers within me. After I had put so much time and effort into making them, even the fully cooked ones didn’t look like the fancy or pretty kind I had imagined. And with kids, work, and busy lives, who has the time to strive for perfection?

Enter the sfenj! My husband, who is Sephardic, introduced me to this wonderful pastry during our first year of marriage. Sephardic Jews trace their roots back to Spain and Portugal, and many settled in various parts of Europe and North Africa, where we find the sfenj. Ever since my husband introduced me to sfenj I’ve been making it every year for Hanukkah, as well as for our annual Mimouna party, the Moroccan Jewish holiday that marks the end of Passover.

What stands out immediately is how flawed the sfenj looks compared to the picture perfect sufganiyah. The shape is round the same way a circle would look if I drew it with my weak hand. It has bumps. The hole inside sometimes closes up or splits in two. And there’s no way to control the outcome because the dough is soft and sticky. And if you try to add more flour to manage the dough, it will just result in a bland clump.

I’ve learned not to get frustrated, and instead embrace the imperfection. The thing is, the sfenj is supposed to look different! Our hands will get messy, and that’s okay. As with life, we need to do our best and trust the process. When we do, the sfenj will come out tasting deliciously like home.