Let’s start with a little question. What do you call this?

If you are an English speaker, you might call this a jelly-filled donut or a jam doughnut. After all, these are doughnuts with a sweet filling, usually strawberry jam. Some Portuguese speakers might call this a malassada (a portmanteau of mal assada “badly baked”). Some Americans might call them malasadas too.

But there are several names that you would encounter if you are learning or using German. So on today’s continuation on the Word Bites series, we are going to take this series very literally, and dive into the various etymologies for the German names of this very pastry.

The most common name you would encounter is the word Berliner. It is most commonly used in the north and western parts of Germany, and Switzerland. But most interestingly, it is not known by the word Berliner in Berlin of all places. This name is associated with a Prussian legend, where a baker hailing from Berlin was judged as unfit for combat by the Prussian Army, and so, made his contributions during field days by preparing donuts that were fried over an open fire. Paying homage to the baker’s birthplace, this jelly-filled donut was thus called the Berliner.

Of course, one would not mention the word Berliner without alluding to the iconic John F. Kennedy speech called “Ich bin ein Berliner” given in 1963, which he gave in Berlin. This speech sparked a whole lot of misconception, but the breakdown is, some people thought that there was a double meaning involved, as the word Berliner refers to a resident or citizen of Berlin and the pastry, and the use of ein before Berliner would have biased the meaning towards the pastry meaning. As it made its way into the German internet in the early 2000s, it was widely regarded as a myth or an urban legend, or a misconception in the anglosphere.

And on another sidenote, the jelly-filled donut is also known by the name Bismarcks in some parts of North America today, named after the statesman Otto von Bismarck. So that is another bonus term.

In Berlin, Berliner is just a demonym. To refer to the jelly-filled donut we are focusing on here, that would be called Pfannkuchen. Quite literally, “pancakes”, perhaps because the oil or fat used to fry the dough in is traditionally in a pan. But make no mistake, pancakes are translated as Eierkuchen in Berlin, but are still Pfannkuchen in the rest of Germany, and sometimes also Palatschinken in Southern Germany and Austria.

Moving down south, we encounter the word Krapfen in Bavaria and Austria, as well as some parts of South Tyrol in Italy. Sometimes, you would also find the word Faschingskrapfen in Austria as well. Bizarrely, while the Ihle bakeries in Munich where I lived for a while use Krapfen, they are called Berliner in the Rewe supermarket just next door.

Krapfen comes from the Old High German word krapho, which means “claw”. According to the Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Regions and Water Management, or Bundesministerium Land- und Forstwirtschaft, Regionen und Wasserwirtschaft, this pertained to the claw or hook-like shape in which the pastry is prepared. In the centuries past, there was not really a standard way to prepare a doughnut, much less a jelly-filled donut. Doughnuts back then could be elongated, round, curved, or any other shape. The main characteristic these doughnuts had in common was the way they were baked — in hot fat like butter.

When this transition of a doughnut shape from a hook to a ball occurred in Bavaria and Austria was not really known, but there was a 15th century recipe for a horseshoe-shaped doughnut in the neighbouring southern German region of Swabia. Additionally, around the same time, there had been round doughnuts sold in Viennese bakeries or food establishments already. The jam filling came a bit later through the upper classes during the 16th or 17th century.

Then we get to the longer word, Faschingskrapfen. This roughly translates to “carnival doughnuts”, pointing to the fact that these pastries were traditionally served during Carnival, or Fasching, a Christian festival normally observed in February, before the season of Lent. People used to fast during the day in Lent, which meant that they needed more filling foods to eat when breaking their fast. The main wheat staples at the time were either bread or doughnuts, but as doughnuts are prepared by frying dough in fat, doughnuts would have packed slightly more nutrients than bread. Hence, the clergy advised people to prepare doughnuts before Lent. This led to the availability of doughnuts during Carnival season.

In the state of Hesse and the Palatinate region, a similar word known as Kreppel or Kräppel is found. These terms seem to be the counterparts of the word Krapfen in the Hessian and Palatinate dialects, where the -el suffix could have suggested some diminutive form (with a possible rough translation being ‘little claw’), which could allude to the traditional way these pastries were prepared, and the general similarities shared with that for the Krapfen.

Sometimes, you would also encounter the word Fastnachtsküchelchen or Fastnachtsküchle. This also translates to “carnival doughnuts”, which origin you can find for Faschingskrapfen above. But we might want to break down what the –küchelchen part means. These sort of translates to “little cakes”, as seen by the diminutive suffix -chen. And so, these would be the ‘little cakes’ one would eat around Carnival.

To visualise the geographical distribution of the various German words for the jelly-filled donut, there is a map by the Atlas zur deutschen Alltagssprache you can find here. A similar map is also done up by Zeit Magazin, and even a German supermarket chain’s website. There are also other terms mentioned here in this article, especially the terms used in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. One possible reason why there are so many terms for this in a single language is, there were traditionally several forms of preparing the pastry that differed by shape and presence of filling, such as the claw, which could have converged over time. This is combined with the various German dialects spoken in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, which contributes to the diverse number of terms referring to the humble jelly-filled donut.

Naturally, you would find words for these entering various European languages to refer to this pastry, often prepared using similar methods but also possibly adding a local cultural twist to them. Examples of languages borrowing or deriving from the word Krapfen include Slovene (krof), Serbian (крофна), and some other languages in the Balkans, while Portuguese sort of references the Berliner, as bolas de Berlim, quite literally ‘Berlin balls’. Argentinian, Uruguayan (berlinesa, but also bola de fraile) and Chilean Spanish (berlín), Danish (Berliner Pfannkuchen, Berlinerbolle) and Dutch (berlinerbol) also refer to the pastry by borrowing the Berliner in some form as well.

And so, this has been a little exploration into the rather diverse terminology surrounding the jelly-filled donut. This as given me a little craving for these pastries, which I am tempted to satisfy after this essay is published. What do you call the jelly-filled donut in your language or dialect? Let me know in the comments!