We have a few recipe categories that we revisit often, including challah, potato kugel and doughnuts. What they all have in common is that they are three of the most popular Ashkenaz traditional foods.
Recently someone interviewed me and asked me why I think traditional food on Chanukah is so important. Aside from the meaning of the tradition, I answered that it’s the memories that come with these foods that are important. It really doesn’t matter if you make them yourself, semi-make them (buy plain doughnuts and decorate them) or buy them ready. The memories we create serving these foods at specific times is what connects the physical to the spiritual.
You can serve doughnuts any day of the week, but the fact that we save them for Chanukah and look forward to them helps to make the time special.
But, since you clicked on this post because of the title, that probably means you’re considering making your own doughnuts. Now there is nothing like fresh hot doughnuts out of the fryer. And we’ve shared 2 excellent recipes that we love: naomitgis sufganiyot and yeshiva doughnuts.
However Chanukah is a really busy time of the year and if we can make those doughnuts in advance, it can make that week go by more smoothly. Yes you can have fresh doughnuts and eat them too!
Follow whatever recipe you prefer and shape the doughnuts into balls. Lay them on a lined baking sheet, cover loosely (we covered it with Saran wrap that was sprayed with Pam) and place them directly in the freezer.
Once they are frozen solid, transfer them into Ziplock bags.
The day that you want to fry them, remove from the bag while still frozen. You don’t want to defrost them together in the bag! Place them on parchment squares like in this post. Cover loosely and let them defrost completely. The small ones take one hour to defrost and the larger ones 1 ½ – 2 hours. Once they are defrosted, let rise an additional 1 ½ hours and fry!
Yes, latkes can be prepared and frozen too! See how to freeze latkes here.
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