~ Fresh is Best ~

The thing about donuts is that they're all fabulous--if they're fresh. We have freshness tests on donuts from bakeries that rarely pass muster around here. If you don't mind making a little batch of dough, and keeping your hot oil for frying just hot enough but not too hot (about 350 degrees), you will find donut nirvana in your own kitchen. Sitto, my grandmother, made fried dough at the end of every baking day at our house. Sprinkled with sugar, those ditties are the things sweet nostalgia are made of. Scroll down here for photos. Other traditional donuts from our neck of the woods in the Middle East include fritters like the ones pictured above, aromatic zalabia with gentle spices and an orange blossom simple syrup glaze. Dear heaven, thank you! There is also the beautiful molded ka'ik Easter "cookie," which qualifies for a donut when you follow my recipe for light, glazy BAKED goodness. These are all recipes for yeasted donuts, which require a rise time that you can do overnight in your refrigerator for an early morning fry-off, or be silly like me and get up at the crack of dawn, make your dough (for the fried donuts; the ka'ik has a longer rise time), then spend a few calm minutes thinking about the many ways to examine the soul (around here we practice Lent: prayer, fasting, almsgiving) in the weeks ahead leading up to Easter. I suppose that's not silly at all. It's really the point of things, that time during the dough rise. So donut-making contributes to our spiritual practice, does it not?!