Catholic Recipe: Faschingskrapfen

Also Called: Jelly Doughnuts

One more feature of Carnival time is the food and drink, the specialties of the season. To understand the special character of Carnival pastry — why it is always fried in deep fat, why it is full of eggs and milk and meat — we have to go back to the beginning when Lent was really the time of fast and abstinence, when it was forbidden not only to eat meat, but also milk and cream and everything made thereof, such as butter and cheese. The closer Ash Wednesday came, the more housewives tried to clear the kitchen and pantry of the forbidden goods. As these included any kind of lard and fat, they were used in these last days to make those delicious Faschingskrapfen, a kind of glorified jelly doughnut.

DIRECTIONS

Scald the milk and allow to cool. Dissolve the yeast in the water, which should be warm. Add 1/2 cup flour. Mix thoroughly. Add this to the milk with a little of the sugar. Then add 3 cups flour, sifted. Let rise, preferably overnight. Beat the eggs well and add the lard and the rest of the sugar. Mix well. Stir in enough of the remaining flour to make a stiff dough. Let it rise again. Turn out on a floured pastry board and roll to 1/4-inch thickness. Cut out and let the doughnuts rise to double their bulk. Fill them with apricot jam. Then fry in deep fat at 360° three to four minutes, turning as they fry. Drain on absorbent paper.