Sufganyot And Other Hannukah Specialities

We were invited to a last night of Hannukah party and since it was less than a mile away we walked over about 5:15pm, just in time to see the last of the pale blue western sky fade and the beautiful crescent moon in the cold crystal clear air. (It's about 0˚F  or  -17˚C) Batches and batches of latkes were being pulled out to be heated as guests arrived (I think she said they'd made 3 or 400, 15 pounds of potatoes.)



Then placed on the table with apple sauce and sour cream.

The dessert table had sufganyot.  (It's ok, I had to ask what they were called too.) These are jelly donuts.  The Houston Chronicle has a recent article about them, including two recipes.  In part it says:

"Kuchenmeisterei" ("Mastery of the Kitchen"), published in 1485 and later translated into Polish as "Kuchmistrzostwo," has the distinction of being one of the first cookbooks to be run off Johannes Gutenberg's printing press. It also contains the first record of a jelly doughnut - "Gefullte Krapfen" - according to "Encyclopedia of Jewish Food" by Gil Marks.

Germans had many names for them, including Berliners. In Austria, they were known as krapfen. In Poland, they were called paczki. In Russia, ponchiki.

"In Israel, however, ponchiks soon took the name sufganiyah (sufganiyot plural), from a 'spongy dough' mentioned in the Talmud, sofgan and sfogga," Marks writes. "Sufganiyot subsequently emerged as by far the most popular Israeli Hanukkah food."

There were also other sweets and people brought lots of the things to taste.  

And when there were enough people there that latke supply had dwindled, they  said the prayers and lit the candles.  Since it was the last night, all the candles were lit.