Berliner

Berliner is a yeasted dough ball deep-fried without a hole, filled with jam through a hidden slit and dusted with sugar. It's the doughnut that gave New Year's Eve its running joke: bakeries traditionally slip a mustard-filled one into a batch of jam ones, and pulling the wrong Berliner has been a small German ritual for generations.

What it actually is

An enriched yeast dough — egg, milk, butter and sugar worked in — is proofed, shaped into balls and deep-fried in fat rather than baked, which is what gives it a pale ring around the middle where the dough meets the hot fat. Once cooled, a small hole is pushed into the side and jam (classically red, plum or strawberry) is piped deep into the centre, and the outside is finished with a heavy dusting of sugar, sometimes an icing glaze instead.

Unlike an American jelly doughnut, there's no visible seam or dusting pattern marking where the filling went in — a good Berliner gives no clue until it's bitten.

How it's served

• Whole, at room temperature, never sliced or plated with cutlery.
• Dusted with granulated or icing sugar, the classic finish.
• Around New Year's, when the mustard-prank version sometimes appears in bakeries as a running joke.

Writing it on a menu

• Flag gluten, egg and dairy; the enriched dough carries all three.
• Say which jam is used, since plum, strawberry and apricot are all common and worth naming.
• Mention if you glaze with icing instead of dusting with sugar, since regulars have a preference between the two finishes.
• Note that it's best fresh; a day-old Berliner turns noticeably greasy and the dough loses its light texture.