The Moroccan doughnut-like pastry often sold by street vendors and at public gatherings is called sfenj. It is a light, spongy ring made from a yeast-leavened dough of flour, water, salt, and sometimes sugar, then stretched by hand and deep-fried.
The name comes from an Arabic word meaning “sponge,” an apt description of its airy interior. In Morocco, sfenj is traditionally bought fresh in the morning for breakfast or later in the day with tea or coffee. It may be eaten plain, sprinkled with sugar, or coated with honey or syrup.
Sfenj belongs to a wider Maghrebi family of fried doughs. Related names include khfaf in Algeria, sfinz in Libya, and bambalouni in Tunisia. The pastry is also associated with Maghrebi Jewish communities, who carried it to Israel before 1948, where it became linked with Hanukkah.
It is easy to confuse sfenj with a filled doughnut or a Western cake doughnut. Traditional sfenj is usually an irregular, chewy ring without a filling. Briouat and other Moroccan pastries use thin pastry wrappers and fillings, making them distinctly different.