Many American Jews are surprised to discover that donuts—specifically, jelly donuts—are a traditional Hanukkah food. Eating donuts at Hanukkah dates back several centuries in Europe, and is associated with the holiday for the same reason latkes are—foods fried in oil are symbolic of the Hanukkah miracle of a small amount of oil lasting for eight days. Jelly donuts, or sufganiyot, as they’re called in Hebrew, are known today as an Israeli treat (the Labor Federation in then-Palestine declared them the “official” food of Hanukkah in the 1920s), and Americans have happily adopted the custom. Below, JWA food writer Lisa Yelsey shares her own recipe for sufganiyot: