Sufganiyot

Sufganiyot are deep-fried, jam-filled yeast doughnuts dusted with icing sugar. The tradition of frying dough in oil for a winter holiday traces back to Ashkenazi European Jewish communities, but since Israel's founding the doughnut has become the country's own defining Hanukkah food — bakeries sell them by the millions every winter, often in dozens of modern filling variations far beyond the classic jam.

What it really is

An enriched yeast dough proofs until light and puffy, then portions into rounds that fry in hot oil until they turn deep golden on both sides and puff up around the edges. Once cooled slightly, each doughnut gets injected with jam — traditionally strawberry or raspberry — through a small hole, and a dusting of icing sugar finishes it. The oil-frying itself carries real symbolic weight tied to Hanukkah's story about a small amount of oil lasting far longer than expected.

The classic jam filling is a starting point, not the ceiling, in modern Israel. Bakeries compete every Hanukkah season with elaborate variations — chocolate, caramel, dulce de leche, cream — that go well beyond the traditional strawberry jam, though the plain jam-filled version remains the standard against which the others are judged.

How it's served

• Fresh, still slightly warm from frying, dusted with sugar.
• As a Hanukkah treat, eaten throughout the eight-day holiday.
• Sold individually from bakeries, rarely made at home given how widely available they are commercially.

How to write it on the menu

• Flag the wheat and egg.
• It's naturally vegetarian.
• Say what filling is used if it's not the classic jam, since modern variations are common and genuinely different orders.