Filled Donuts

The filled donuts are also called Berliners, Berliners, Berlin balls, Friar’s balls, Bombs or Abyssinians and are a delicious sweet that is good for breakfast, as a snack, dessert or snack. Here we show you several recipes to make filled donuts.

One of the critical points when making donuts is frying. If they are fried too quickly, the donuts are raw inside and if they are fried too slowly the dough absorbs the oil. It is best to fry in a small frying pan (or saucepan) half full of oil and control the temperature with the thermometer (170ºC / 180ºC). Another caveat is that donuts should be eaten on the day, because if not, they are dried. Of course that is not usually a problem …

Recipe: Cream-Filled Donuts

Ingredients:

• 500g of strength flour
• 65g sugar (plus extra sugar for coating)
• 10g of salt
• 15g fresh baker’s yeast
• 4 eggs
• Zest of half a lemon
• 150ml of water
• 125g butter, softened
• Plenty of sunflower oil for frying

Preparation

• First, prepare the day before all the ingredients in a bowl except the butter and oil. Knead by hand or with a food processor (better with a robot or a mixer because the dough is quite sticky).
• Add the butter little by little while continuing to knead. When it is well integrated, knead for another 5-10 minutes, until obtaining a smooth and homogeneous mixture.
• Then put the dough in a bowl covered in flour. Cover with a clean cloth and leave in a warm place until it doubles in size (about 2 hours or so).
• When it has reached the desired size, sprinkle the table and hands with flour and lightly knead again. Put the dough back in the bowl, cover it with a plastic wrap and leave it in the refrigerator overnight.

After the night’s rest …

• The next day, remove the dough from the refrigerator and lightly flour the work table. Cut the dough into 25 equal portions of approximately 45g and shape them into a ball. Place the balls on a baking sheet, leaving enough space between the balls to double in size when resting, and lightly squash them with your fingers. Cover the trays with transparent plastic or a cloth and let it rest for about 2 hours until they double in size.
• Put plenty of sunflower oil in a saucepan over the fire, until it reaches 170-180ºC and fry the donuts in groups of three maximum. The skillet (or saucepan) should have enough oil so that the donuts float and do not touch the bottom of the saucepan. Fry two minutes on one side, turn them over and fry another two minutes on the other side. Remove the donuts with a slotted spoon and place on a kitchen paper to drain well.
• Immediately coat in sugar and transfer the rest to a rack until cool.

• To coat them with the classic sugar glaze (instead of normal sugar), mix 200g of icing sugar with four tablespoons of water and dip the donuts in the mixture before placing them on the rack.
• Once cold, the donuts can be filled with a pastry bag equipped with a filling nozzle, with pastry cream, jam, nocilla …

Custard cream

Ingredients:

• 250ml cream
• 250ml milk
• 150g sugar
• A vanilla bean
• 15g cornstarch
• 100ml milk
• 3 egg yolks

Process:

• First, boil the cream, 150ml milk, sugar and vanilla.
• Besides, mix 15g of cornstarch with 100ml of milk and reserve.
• Besides, beat the three egg yolks and add the reserved milk and cornstarch.

• When the milk and cream mixture boils, remove it from the heat before it gets out of the saucepan, remove the vanilla bean, open it, remove the seeds and add them to the saucepan.
• Add the yolk mixture while stirring and return to the heat (medium).
• Stir the mixture continuously until it thickens to taste. (It will thicken more when cooling).
• Let cool before filling the donuts.
• Store the filled donuts in the refrigerator.