Today on Food on Fridays we have another entry in my on-going “Doughnut Diaries” series of posts.

Our topic today was suggested by Chris, following some recent taste-testing that we conducted here in Tübingen.  Ever the dedicated researchers, this week we tried two different types of doughnuts from a relatively new (well, new to us) bakery here in Tübingen:  a chocolate iced Donut, and a jelly-filled Berliner.

Quick note: I have decided to try to standardize on the terminology going forward as follows:

• doughnut – the English word for the general type of pastry
• Berliner – a word used is some parts of Germany, including Tübingen, to refer to filled doughnuts that resemble an American jelly doughnut
• Donut – a word in German that always refers to an American-style doughnut that has a hole in the middle. Unlike in the U.S., though, German Donuts can sometimes be filled.

The Donut we tried this week had chocolate icing and also chocolate creme filling. The icing style on this particular Donut varied from the standard approach:  the bottom was completely iced, while the top had an artistic design drizzled on it. I haven’t seen that before either here or in the U.S.; perhaps that’s the baker’s signature style?

Chocolate-iced (and filled) Donut – Top

The Berliner type from this bakery, on the other hand, was more predictable, filled as it with some sort of red jam, probably raspberry.  It looked like it was covered in powered sugar, as they often are, but biting into it revealed that under the powered sugar was a layer of granulated sugar, of the type found on an American jelly doughnut. Another unusual innovation.

Berliner

We bought our Donut and Berliner one morning, but didn’t eat them right away. We ate the Donut after lunch, and it was quite good.

However, we wound up eating the Berliner much later in the day, and by that time it had grown rather stale.  Of course, that was our fault in some ways, as Berliners are not designed to be eaten late in the day. While they aren’t for breakfast in Germany, they are intended to be eaten as part of a mid-morning coffee break.

So, to be fair, we went back the same bakery and tried another Berliner, eating it —  in a more normal manner  — for a mid-morning snack. Turns out that when we ate it like that, this particular Berliner was among the best we’ve had here in Tübingen.

But this does beg the question of whether we have always eaten Berliners at the right time of day for maximum tastiness while conducting our tests. I’m sure you’d agree that proper research about these things is key. However, we may not have been as diligent about controlling for variables like timing, since we don’t tend to have mid-morning snacks as a rule. Which is probably good in the long-run for our health, but it does get in the way of proper food research, I guess.

Interestingly enough, we had actually run into this same issue in France last month.  I always thought that in Paris one would eat croissants a lot, including for breakfast.  However, at the little bakery we went to every morning in Paris, the little breakfast set-menu that we got consisted of half of a baguette, butter, jam, OJ, and coffee. It was called “The Parisian.” As we later discovered, Parisians typically eat bread, not croissants, for breakfast. Croissants are for …  a mid-morning coffee break.

But since we didn’t eat mid-morning snacks, but wanted to try a croissant, I tried a one later in the day. Turns out if you eat them later in the day, they’ve gone stale — just like the Berliner we sampled this week.

Therefore, as Chris concluded today based on these findings, a Berliner is in fact a German croissant. While you’re pondering the logic of that conclusion, check out the photo gallery below for more photos of this week’s doughnuts. 😉