Hanukkah Recipe: Jelly Filled Doughnuts With Tamar Ansh

Ingrediants:
 
7 cups sifted white flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
3 eggs
1 packet (1 tablespoon) vanilla sugar
1 cup warm water
3-4 tablespoons orange juice
50 grams fresh yeast granules
 
Place the flour, salt and sugar in a mixing bowl.  Add the eggs and oil and knead for two minutes until crumbly.  Make a well in the center of this mixture and sprinkle in the yeast granules, vanilla sugar, juice and warm water.  Cover the bowl and let it sit for 10 minutes.  The yeast should have begun activating.  Knead until a soft and pliable dough is formed.  If the dough is too hard, add a few drops more of water and oil until it is a uniformly smooth dough.  If the dough is too wet, just add a bit more flour to it.  Smear your hands with a fine layer of oil and pat the dough all over with your oily hands.  Cover the bowl and allow the dough to rise for 30 - 40 minutes.
 
This looks like a very small amount of dough but in reality it makes quite a lot of doughnuts.  Since doughnuts cannot be frozen and are only good eaten right away, unless you are expecting a tremendous crowd, it does not pay to double this recipe.
 
Punch the dough down and you are ready to begin.
 
Roll out a section of the dough so that it is thin, but not transparent. Then press a round glass gently into half of the dough, but do not press down hard enough to cut them out yet. In the center of each round, add the fillings of your choice. Some great ideas are chocolate chips, jelly, caramel, chocolate cream, or even peanut butter!  Gently fold the other half of the dough over the little bumps and circles. Take the glass used in the first step, press it down firmly around each bump (i.e. your filling) and twist while pressing down on the dough, thus cutting it out. This will seal the filling into the center of each doughnut.  Keep doing this until they are all filled and twisted shut.  Leave them to rise on the counter or on a piece of parchment paper for 30 minutes, until they look puffed up.
 
Now comes the frying part.  Fill a dairy pot with oil until halfway full.  GREAT TIP before beginning to fry the doughnuts:  put a piece of peeled carrot into the oil; it will keep the oil from turning black and burning during the frying process.
 
Fry doughnuts in the hot oil about 3-5 minutes until golden brown. Flip them over and continue to fry on the second side.  This should only take an additional 2 minutes, since by now the oil should be very hot. When the second side is also golden, simply remove each doughnut with a slotted spoon onto a plate lined with paper towels to drain off excess oil.  After it cools down for about 5 minutes, sprinkle each one with powdered sugar and bite in!
 
Warning: Hot oil is very dangerous!! Make sure your pot is on a back burner, with the handle pointed towards the back and no where near where anyone could bump into it and G-d forbid accidentally tip it over. Make sure that no small children or crawling babies are near you when you work with hot oil.