Let's admit it. Who hasn't eaten sphinj? Who doesn't know sphinj? Like any self-respecting blog, we need to address The Spinj. The fried donut with the hole and no jam. The thing with sphinj, to my taste, is to introduce air into the dough. Air in frying evaporates and we're left with a fried pastry full of holes. Add sugar and you've got yourself a heaven of oil.
Before dusting
After the dusting
Look how much air.
hear me out
Fried food taste best when it comes out of oil and into your mouth. Just saying.
Frying temperature is important for good reason. too hot and you'll burn it, too cold and you'll make it too oily. The recommended temperature for frying Sphinj is between 160-170 degrees.
Alcohol in the recipe helps the dough not to absorb oil. And no. It doesn't get you drunk. The more water there is in the dough, the more it will evaporate while frying and the more airy it will become.
Sphinx
Materials
1 kilo of flour
2 tablespoons dry yeast
4 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons oil
1 teaspoon salt
A tablespoon of Arak or Vodka
1 cup warm water + 3 cups water
1-1.5 liters of oil for frying
Sugar or powdered sugar for serving
Preparation
Put a cup of warm water with yeast and a pinch of sugar. Mix well and let the yeast rest for 5 minutes to ferment.
In a very large bowl, place the flour, sugar, salt, and oil and mix well. Add the water with the yeast and mix well. Add the remaining water in a thin stream and gradually, and with circular and vigorous hand movements, mix all the ingredients. The goal is to get as much air into the dough as possible. Make sure all the flour at the bottom of the bowl is absorbed into the dough. The dough will be very runny and sticky and that's fine.
Grease the surface of the dough and cover the bowl.
An hour later, mix the dough again with the same vigorous hand movements that introduce air. Leave to rise for another hour - an hour and a half or until the dough doubles in size.
Towards the end of second rising, over medium heat, heat a pot of oil to a temperature of 160 degrees.Put a small bowl with oil next to the oil pot. We will use it to lubricate our hands.
Dip your fingers in the oil and pinch a piece of the wet dough. The piece should be a little bigger than a ping pong ball. With the help of the thumb, pierce the dough and widen the hole. We got a shape of a wheel.
Carefully place the dough in the hot oil. Fry the dough on both sides until golden. About 2 minutes. Remove the sphinj to cool on a tray with absorbent paper. Repeat the process with the rest of the dough. Be careful not to crowd the pot with too many sphinjs.
Coat the sphinj in powdered sugar (sugar is fine too) and serve hot.
Happy Chanukah.
