Sugar was very costly until the 16th century, and early doughnuts were usually stuffed with savory fillings like cheese, meat and mushroom.

It was one of the first cookbooks printed using the Gutenberg press and contains the first known recipe for a jelly doughnut, called Gefüllte Krapfen made with jam-filled yeasted bread dough deep-fried in lard.

For the classical Pfannkuchen made in Berlin the dough is rolled into a ball, deep-fried in lard, whereby the distinctive bright bulge occurs, and then filled with jam.

Today the filling usually is injected with a large syringe or pastry bag after the dough is fried in one piece.

In parts of southern and central Germany (Bavaria), as well as in much of Austria, they are a variety of Krapfen (derived from Old High German kraffo and furthermore related to Gothic language krappa), sometimes called Fastnachtskrapfen or Faschingskrapfen to distinguish them from Bauernkrapfen.

In Slovenia, it is krof; in Portugal it is "bola de Berlim" (Berlin ball) or malasada (from "mal-assada" = "badly-baked"); in Croatia, it is krafne; while in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, it is called krofne.

In Hungary, it is called bécsi fánk, meaning Viennese doughnut, as it was transited by Austria to the Hungarian kitchen.

[8] The pastry is called Berlinerbol in the Netherlands and Suriname, Berlijnse bol and boule de Berlin in Belgium, hillomunkki or (glazed) berliininmunkki or piispanmunkki in Finland, berlinerbolle in Norway, sufganiyot in Israel, Berlínarbollur in Iceland, šiška in Slovakia, and gogoși in Romania.

[9][10] In English-speaking countries, Berliners are a type of doughnut[citation needed] usually filled with jam, jelly, custard, or whipped cream.

[citation needed] In South Australia, however, the Kitchener bun is a Berliner cut on the side for the filling of jam and cream.

[11] In Israel, a version of the pastry called sufganiyah (Hebrew: סופגנייה) is traditionally consumed during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.

Berlin ball) or malasada, and the filling is frequently an egg-yolk-based yellow cream called creme pasteleiro (lit.

In Tromsø, Norway, Berliners are eaten to celebrate the return of the sun at the end of the polar night on January 21.

In recent years, bakeries have also made a special type of Berliner called a mørketidsbolle (lit.

They did so by making large batches of malasadas, which they would subsequently share with friends from all the other ethnic groups in the plantation camps.