The first ever Doughnut Duel drew a crowd hungry to pick the best Hanukkah treat. Photo by Nasan Fitz-Henley
What makes a perfect Hanukkah doughnut? Is it the fried dough, which reminds us of the miracle of the long-lasting oil? Or is it the classic jammy inside that threatens to gush over and stain your novelty menorah sweater? Or maybe, it’s the balance in every part: the perfect mix of chewy carbs, sweet filling and powdered sugar that provides a decadent dose of Hebrew school nostalgia.
Last week, the Hotel Moxy in Williamsburg, Brooklyn hosted six bakeries serving up their own spins on sufganiyot: the Hebrew word for doughnuts, and a staple of the Hanukkah season. The first-of-its-kind Great Hanukkah Doughnut Duel was organized by Jewish arts and culture group The Neighborhood and hosted by food influencer Jeremy Jacobowitz. A few of us at the Forward came hungry.
The rules were simple: guests were given a single gold token for voting, and a free drink ticket. Then they boarded an elevator to the 11th floor. In a swanky lounge overlooking the Williamsburg Bridge, we filled paper plates with doughnuts from different vendors stationed across the room. A single tray of gluten-free doughnuts sat sadly in the corner, mostly untouched. Espresso martinis and wine were available at the bar, but to our dismay, milk was not.
Jammy and jovial
Breads Bakery greeted guests with a traditional take on the classic powdered jelly sufganiyah. Their spongy, light doughnut was coated in fine white sugar and burst with gooey strawberry jam from the Union Square market.
The filling had the proper viscosity — and the brioche-y dough was velvety — but it tasted slightly artificial, and perhaps a touch too sweet.
More impressive than the doughnuts was the presentation: Breads used whole strawberries to decorate their tray. One Forward journalist took a full plate of home as a palate cleanser. (Another had the good idea to pair them with gelt, in a kind of deconstructed chocolate-covered strawberry.)
Reunion, an Israeli spot in Williamsburg, served doughnut holes. The eatery included a variety of jammy dips in creative flavors — including rose petal, white cherry and a green walnut jam, with half nuts included for extra texture.
The jams were fragrant and colorful, and they allowed tasters to customize the sweetness. But scooping your own jam onto the plate buffet-style made for some extra work for our dry cleaners.
Hath not a doughnut holes?
12 Chairs, while a beloved institution for Israeli meze, went too far in serving yo-yos, which — by their own admission, weren’t doughnuts at all, but a kind of citrusy fried shortbread cookie in homage to a North African Hanukkah tradition. They get props for repping that region of world Jewry, but to our minds, they failed to understand the assignment.
Kubeh, a Manhattan restaurant known for bringing different Middle Eastern cuisines together, was inspired by this year’s overlap of Christmas and Hanukkah. But while they whipped up a gingerbread halva pistachio doughnut, the resulting treat was not nearly as harmonious as one might hope Christmukkah could be.
It had a thick filling of ginger cream and crushed pistachios, which gave it some density. The shredded halva and crushed nuts at the core did little to subdue the overpowering ginger flavor. (Christmas, yet again you’ve stolen our light!) Halva and gingerbread are dry by themselves; combined, they left us feeling like the parched Israelites in the desert.
Not all was lost. The mocha praline doughnut from Fan-Fan Doughnuts was creamy and refreshing. The tiny delicacy included chocolate icing and a hazelnut-espresso ganache filling, complete with crumbled pralines on top. It tasted like a more grown-up version of a Boston cream doughnut. Called “the mensch,” and created as a riff on a Ferrero Rocher truffle by baker Fany Gerson as a treat for her husband, it was the favorite of Sam Silverman, the so-called “bagel ambassador” known for his social posts about doughnuts’ saltier cousins.
“When you come to an event like this, with chocolate and dulce de leche, it just stands out among the regular sufganiyot,” said Silverman, who we found clad in a bagel-pattern Hawaiian shirt, which many there confused for doughnuts.
The king of confections
As far as vibes go, the bar was buzzing with Jews young and older. The Hanukkah decorations were minimal, and at one point they inspired brazen acts of voter fraud; some people used the decorative gelt near the jars used to tally votes for the best doughnut to cast un-kosher votes.
In the end, only one treat could take home the trophy. That honor went to Mesiba, a local Levant -style restaurant just down the block from the hotel. They presented a simple yet delicious sfenj (‘ספינג) doughnut, a popular variation of the Hanukkah doughnut among Moroccan Jewry. We thought it tasted like a Jewish beignet or zeppole — perfectly light and oil-forward with a subtle, nutty sweetness. Simple in the best way, while nailing the perfect ratio of crispiness to fluffiness.
We later caught up with Eli Buliskeria, the accomplished Georgian-Israeli chef who crafted the evening’s winning dessert.
“I grew up in Holon,” which is near Bat Yam, said Buliskeria. “And when I was growing up they had these sufganiyot at the beach, and that’s my inspiration.”
Buliskeria posed with his trophy — a golden statuette of an angel holding up a frosted doughnut — which he said he would give to his mother. Despite the major win, Buliskeri said he had humble Hanukkah plans.
“I’ll try to be as much as we can with my family, and here in the restaurant we are going to make this dish and have people get it as a dessert,” he said. He posed for some selfies before meeting his wife downstairs.
On a cold, wet day, sugared and carbed out to all oblivion, we left with our hearts and stomachs full. Now we just need the recipes — and maybe some Pepto Bismol.
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