What is sfenj, the Moroccan doughnut?

Sfenj is Morocco’s beloved doughnut, and watching it being made is half the fun. The dough is wet, sticky, and yeasty — little more than flour, water, yeast, and salt, with no sugar in the dough itself. The vendor pulls off a piece of the slack dough by hand, deftly stretches a hole in the middle, and drops the ring straight into a vat of hot oil, where it puffs up and turns crisp and golden in moments.

Fresh from the oil, sfenj is glorious: crunchy and blistered on the outside, light, chewy, and full of air pockets inside, with that satisfying pull you want from good fried dough. Because the dough is unsweetened, it is finished to taste — rolled in granulated sugar, drizzled with honey, or left plain to eat with something sweet. Eaten warm, it is one of the simplest great pleasures of a Moroccan morning.

Sfenj is classic breakfast and snack food, sold from dedicated stalls that often do nothing else, the vendor frying ring after ring as customers queue. It is traditional to buy several threaded onto a loop of palm frond or string to carry home, where they are eaten with mint tea or coffee. There is a real ritual to the early-morning sfenj run in many neighbourhoods.

To try the best, find a busy sfenj stall in any medina — the queue and the smell of frying dough will lead you there — and eat them on the spot while still hot, because they lose their magic as they cool. I love taking guests for an early sfenj-and-mint-tea breakfast before the souks fill up; it is cheap, authentic, and exactly how locals start the day.