Make your own Berliner doughnuts – a simple doughnut recipe

Name: Make your own Berliner doughnuts – a simple doughnut recipe
Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 2 h 15 min
Yield: 12
Cuisine: Switzerland
Ingredients: 330 g White flour; 55 g Egg yolk; 15 g Yeast, fresh; 2 g Lemon zest; 150 g Whole milk; 25 g Sugar; 50 g Butter, cold; 4 g Salt; 150 g Jam of your choice

Make your own delicious Berliner doughnuts

Do you sometimes find yourself dreaming of the delicious taste of a homemade Berliner? Imagine biting into a freshly baked doughnut and feeling the sweet jam melt on your tongue. A homemade Berliner is simply a treat! And the best thing about it is that you can easily make them yourself. Whether you call them Berliners, doughnuts or pancakes, these yeast-raised pastries with a delicious filling are a real treat for the taste buds. So why not roll up your sleeves and get started straight away?

The process of making Berliner doughnuts yourself is actually quite simple. All you need are a few basic ingredients, a little patience and a good dose of motivation. Start by making a yeast dough. Knead the dough until it’s nice and smooth and supple, then leave it to rise in a warm place until it has increased significantly in volume. For this kneading process, we’d recommend using a food processor – or, even better, a dough mixer. Whilst the dough is rising, you can set about preparing the jam or filling of your choice. Traditionally, Berliner doughnuts are often filled with raspberry jam, but you can let your imagination run wild and use any filling you like. Nutella, vanilla cream and lemon cream are just a few of the possible variations that can give your Berliner doughnuts the perfect flavour. There are now more and more creams being used as fillings for doughnuts. Often, the glaze on the Berliner is then adapted to match the filling, so you can tell straight away what’s inside. But here we’ve opted for a classic Berliner recipe. Our doughnuts are filled with raspberry jam and rolled in granulated sugar.

The only downside to making them at home is the smell of deep-frying, but what wouldn’t you ‘put up with’ for the perfect treat? When I deep-fry at home, I always set up a portable hotplate on the balcony to get round the smell issue.

Anyway, I hope you have lots of fun making these light and delicious yeast pastries! I look forward to your feedback!

Häussler dough machine Alpha 2G, red

Ready-to-ship quantity: 2

CHF2,190.00

Pasteurized egg yolk powder, 100 g

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF10.90

White flour, 1 kg

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF4.50

Key figures

Quantity: 10 pieces

Cooking time: approx. 6 minutes

Difficulty: Medium

Shelf life:Max. 2 days

A Berlin recipe

White flour		330 g
Egg yolks		55 g
Yeast \| fresh		15 g
Lemon zest		2 g
Whole milk		150 g
sugar		25 g
Butter \| cold		50 g
salt		4 g
Jam of your choice		150 g

According to legend, the Viennese baker Cäcilia is the inventor of this delicious deep-fried pastry. During an argument with her husband, she is said to have thrown a piece of yeast dough at him in a fit of rage. However, her husband ducked, and the dough fell into a pan of hot fat – and so the Krapfen was born. Another version of the story claims that it was not her husband who caused the baker’s outburst, but her lazy apprentice. The result, however, was the same. One thing is certain, though: this deep-fried pastry is simply unbelievably delicious, and we simply cannot do without it now. Today, you can find the Berliner with a whole host of different fillings. The most classic fillings, however, are raspberry jam, vanilla cream and Hiffenmark (rosehip jam).

Making Berliner dough

Put the flour, egg yolk, yeast and lemon zest into the bowl of the dough mixer. Dissolve the granulated sugar in the whole milk, then pour the mixture into the bowl with the other ingredients. Let the machine mix the ingredients for about 1 minute on the first setting until a coarse dough forms.

Then add the cold butter and let the machine knead everything for a further 3 minutes on the first setting. Finally, add the salt and let the dough knead for 6 minutes on the second setting.

Next, carry out a window test using a small amount of dough. To do this, stretch the dough out slightly until it becomes very thin and you can see through it without it tearing. If the window test is successful, you can shape the dough into a ball, place it in a lightly oiled bowl and cover it with cling film. Now leave it to rise slightly at room temperature for 60 to 70 minutes.

Plastic dough towels

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF19.90

Metal horn

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF14.90

Baking paper 42 x 33 cm, 25 pieces

Ready-to-ship quantity: 8

CHF4.95

After the resting period, you need to weigh out the dough into equal-sized pieces. Ideally, each piece should weigh 60 g. Then try to shape the pieces into nice, even rounds using circular movements of your hand.

Place the round pieces of dough on a baking tray lined with baking paper, leaving plenty of space between them, and cover them with cling film. They now need to rest at room temperature for 3 to 4 hours to allow them to rise. After the resting period, the doughnuts should have doubled in volume compared to their original size. Depending on the room temperature, the proving time may be shorter or longer.

Disposable piping bag transparent 20 pieces

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF6.90

Berlin filling spout Ø 4 mm

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF5.90

Berlin filling spout 5 mm

Ready-to-ship quantity: more than 20 pieces

CHF5.90

Finishing the doughnuts

Now get everything ready for deep-frying. To do this, heat the oil in your deep-fat fryer or a large saucepan to 170 to 180 ºC. Place about 4 doughnuts in the fryer at a time and leave them to float in the oil on one side for about 3 minutes. After 3 minutes, you need to turn the doughnuts over carefully. Two wooden skewers (shish kebab skewers) work very well for this. When deep-frying the doughnuts, it’s important to use plenty of oil so that the dough floats. This is the only way to achieve that characteristic white ring in the middle.

Once the doughnuts have turned a lovely golden brown on both sides, you can remove them from the oil with a slotted spoon and place them on kitchen paper to soak up the excess oil.

Roll the drained, still-warm Berliners in a mixture of cinnamon and sugar. You can, of course, just use sugar, but we thought the cinnamon would be the perfect addition.

Put the raspberry jam into a piping bag fitted with a Berliner nozzle and fill each Berliner with the desired amount of raspberry jam. When filling, count between 6 and 10 seconds, depending on how much you’d like to put in. You’ll need to press a little harder when filling.

Storage & Shelf life

Berliner doughnuts taste best when eaten fresh on the day they’re made. After that, they dry out quite quickly, which is why we recommend you keep them for no more than 2 days. It’s best to store them in an airtight container if possible.