SC - krapfen baked in oil

[grasse at mscd.edu]

Bear and Phlip,
You wrote privately, but seeing the Krapfen thread has grown I guess I will 
post this to the whole crew.

I speak only for MODERN recipes with the word Krapfen at this time...  I 
went through my German cookgooks last night, and found 3 different entities 
being called Krapfen.  Two of them are deep fat fried. "Place fat into a 
deep-fryer and fry for 8 minutes at 170 C, turning once half way through 
the cooking time, with a slotted spoon."  (Yes in German this is called 
ausbacken or backen, but it is deep fat frying.  The Viennese Backha:ndel 
is a wonderful deep fried chicken. The phrase Backen also refers to baking 
in an oven (I use oven baked to make the difference clear in this post.)  I 
do not know how or when this came into being.)

Of the two deep fried versions one uses a pate-choux (sorry, I doubt that 
is spelled right... in German the word is Brandteig)  The liquids are 
brought to a boil, flour is added all at once, and eggs beating in (one at 
a time) till a ball forms.  This is dropped by spoonfuls into the oil. 
(this same type of dough can oven baked to make eclairs and creampuffs.) 

The second deep fried version is a yeast raised dough (like is used for 
Berliner Pfannkuchen -Jelly doughnuts).  The dough is made, raised for 20 
minutes, rolled out, cut into rounds, filled with jelly (this book claims 
Apricot jelly for southern Germany, and strawberry for northern (like 
Berlin), let rise another 15 minutes, and then deep fried in lard at 180C 
for 3 minutes covered, then turned and fried 3 minutes uncovered.

The third version of Krapfen seems to be a savory pastie type (with a meat, 
mushroom, and curry filling).  The dough is a flour, starch, salt, fat and 
cold water type.  This version is oven baked for 20 minutes at "Gas level 
4" or at 220C electric.

And just to cloud the issue, the Krapfen mit Ka:se (cheese krapfen) are 
creampuff type pastry, BAKED for 25 minutes at 220 C, then filled with a 
piped (creamy) Rockford cheese filling.

All these recipes are represented in the book "Menu: Backen von A-Z" by 
Mosaik Verlag (publishers), 1986 Munich. (this book lists a number of other 
nationalities Krapfens too, but they all fit in the 3 categories, just the 
specific ingredients or flavorings change

I also checked "Spezialita:ten aus Grossmutters Zeit" which listed a yeast 
raised version in their section on Berlin... I paraphrase because I only 
brought the A-Z book to work with me... What in Berlin is called Berliner 
Pfannkuchen is the same as what in southern Germany is called Krapfen.  I 
believe they filled their version with plum or Preisselbeer jelly.

And I looked in the Dr. O:tker Baking Book I inherited from MY Grandmother. 
 This lists "Fettkrapfen" - made with a Brandteig version that is then deep 
fat fried.

Here is a bit more than zwei pfennige worth... What else may I do to be of 
service?

Gwen-Cat
Caerthe
(PS, please put the F in Krapfen... the other spelling makes my mind do 
baaaaad things!)

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