Krapfen with International tarting

Cute, round, yummy, filled with all sorts of good stuff... what are they? Krapfen!

Krapfen, or berliners, are a german doughnut made from sweet yeast dough (not so sweet really). They are usually fried and filled with marmaled or jam and sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Carmen, our new team member at International Tarting, proposed making this pastries as a challenge. None of the members is very fond of frying so we decided to bake them. And I have to say, despite they are very yummy, I'm sure these Krapfen improve when fried. Frying probably would give them more of a doughnut texture, whereas baking makes them more of a sweet bun thing. Anyway! they are delicious!

As I said, these doughnuts are usually filled with all sorts of  yummy things. Each one of the 'International tarters' chose different fillings. I went with dark chocolate, white chocolate and raspberry jam. I'm not a fan of white chocolate, my friend Stephie took care of those. The raspberry jam ones were pretty amazing...

BUT when you warm up the chocolate ones...

Well... don't you feel the need to lick that chocolate? Because boy, I did!

And then when you open them...

So, if by now, you don't feel the need to make these, well, I really don't know how to convince you...

Now for the recipe! Makes 24 krapfen of about 2 inches diameter.

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4 cups all purpose flour
2 3/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons oil
1 cup lukewarm milk
2 eggs

In a bowl, combine the lukewarm milk with the yeast and a tablespoon of sugar. Let it rise for about then minutes or until doubled in volume. In the meantime, combine in a bowl the flour, sugar, oil and eggs. Once the yeast has risen, add to the flour mixture and mix well (I did it with my hands).
Now let the dough rise until doubled in volume. My kitchen was specially cold that day so I heated the oven to 150 F, then turned it off and put the bowl with the dough inside. Once doubled, roll the dough in a floured surface, until you get it to be about 3/4 inch thick. Cut the krapfen with a biscuit cutter or any other round (or not) utensil.

Place the krapfen in a floured cookie pan. Let them rise again. I would say until doubled, but mine didn't double. In my case, it took about 3 hr to get to the maximum they would rise. Bake the krapfen at 350 F for about 10 min. While they are still warm, brush the top with melted butter.

Once the krapfen are cool they are ready to be filled. For a chocolate filling, mix about 2 tablespoons of chocolate chips with 1 or 2 tablespoons of heavy cream. I used a big syringe to fill the krapfen. Anything 'squeezable' works well, but take in account that you want to use something with a long tip so you call fill them all the way through.

And now the krapfen are ready to eat! you better enjoy them while they last, which let me tell you, it's not gonna be long!