Berliner (doughnut)

A Berliner or Krapfen is a German jam doughnut with no central hole, made from sweet yeast dough fried in lard or cooking oil, with a jam filling, and usually covered in powdered sugar or glazed.

History

Sugar was very costly until the 16th century, and early doughnuts were usually stuffed with savory fillings like cheese, meat and mushroom. When imports from Caribbean sugar plantations made sugar more affordable, fruit preserves gained in popularity. In 1485, the first German-language cookbook to be published in printed form Kuechenmeisterei was published in Nuremberg and remained in print at least until 1674 with 20 editions (it was later translated into Polish in 1532). It was one of the first cookbooks printed using the Gutenberg press and contains the first known recipe for a jelly doughnut, called Gefüllte Krapfen made with jam-filled yeasted bread dough deep-fried in lard. It is unknown whether this innovation was the author's own or simply a record of an existing practice.

Preparation

The yeast dough contains a good deal of eggs, milk and butter. For the classical Berliner made in Berlin the dough is rolled into a ball, deep-fried in lard, whereby the distinctive bright bulge occurs, and then filled with jam. The filling is related to the topping: for plum-butter, powdered sugar; for raspberry, strawberry and cherry jam, sugar; for all other fillings, sugar icing, sometimes flavoured with rum. Today the filling usually is injected with a large syringe or pastry bag after the dough is fried in one piece.