Jelly Donut- Berliner "baked Better Than Fried"

Berliners are really tasty luscious, spongy sweet ballish buns with a soft heart of jam. ....and they are fried.

I make a baked version with absolute no difference to the fried version except that they are lower on the calorie scale and safer to make......yes "safer"because I associate certain risks with Deep frying.

If they do originate from Berlin is worth doing a research on, however whether they do or not, they are worth every bite you take.

For the dough

3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons salt

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 1/4 teaspoons active dried yeast

2 tablespoons butter,

11/3 cup warm milk

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

For the filling

berry jelly

Topping

Powdered sugar

melted butter

Tools:

Sieve

Icing bag with a pointy nozzle

Pastry Brush

In a large mixing bowl, put all the ingredients together.

Pouring the warm milk as the last ingredient mix into a smooth dough.

Knead the dough for a good 5-10 minutes it if gets elastic and pliable. You know the dough is done when it is nice and bouncy.

Cover it with a damp cloth and keep aside for an hour for the dough to rise.

After an hour punch the dough, which has almost doubled it's size, to get the air out and give a quick knead.

Roll out to a thick sheet of around 1.5-2cm cm thickness(that is almost a finger thickness).

Cut out circles with a circular cookie cutter. See that the cutter has a diameter of minimum

4 cm.

Carefully place each cut circle on a greased baking tray.

Let it stand for another 30 min. The dough will rise up again. These Berliners start looking like little fluffed up balls.

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Place the baking tray in the middle rack of the oven and bake for around 20 mins at 200C.

The Berliners are baked when the crust begins to turn golden brown.

Remove them from the oven.

When still warm, brush each of the puffed Berliners generously with melted butter.

Heap spoonful of icing sugar in the strainer an sift over the Berliner tray. The sugar will stick onto their tops.

Fill in the icing bag with jelly.

With the pointed end of the nozzle dig into each Berliner from the side and squirt a small blob of jam into it's center..( DO NOT OVERFILL or else the jam comes out with a vengeance).

There you go....Luscious, Soft, Spongy Berliners are ready .

Served warm along with coffee....they make an irresistible snack!