Which 13th-century writer's Arabic cookbook contains a doughnut-like sfenj recipe?

Ibn Razin al-Tujibi wrote the 13th-century Arabic cookbook containing a doughnut-like sfenj recipe.

His cookbook records a preparation using leavened semolina dough. The dough could be shaped into a small ball for frying, while a ring-shaped piece with a hole was used to test whether the dough had proofed properly. That testing step produced a form resembling a modern doughnut, even though the historical food was not necessarily the same pastry sold today.

Sfenj is a light, spongy fried dough associated especially with the Maghreb. The name comes from an Arabic word meaning “sponge.” Traditional sfenj may be eaten plain, sprinkled with sugar, or served with honey or syrup, and it remains linked with breakfast and tea-time food in North Africa.

The recipe is significant because it shows that doughnut-like fried dough existed in medieval Arabic culinary culture. It does not prove that one modern doughnut has a single inventor: similar fried-dough traditions developed across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East.