I called them “Berlin balls” but I don’t know their actual English name; in Polish they’re pączki, in Portuguese either sonhos (dreams) or bolas de Berlim (Berlin balls). Their dough is similar to donuts, but they don’t have that hole, and they’re typically filled instead of topped.

Dough:

• 3~4 cups of flour (375~500g)
• 1/2 package of instant yeast (~7g? amount can be eyeballed)
• 4 Tbsp sugar (50g)
• 1/2 tsp salt (3g)
• 1 cup lukewarm milk (240ml)
• 2 large eggs (100g)
• 2 Tbsp veg oil (30g)
• vanilla extract to taste

Finishing:

• veg oil for deep-frying
• either caster’s sugar or refined sugar, for sprinkling
• filling of your choice [see notes]

1. Mix all dough ingredients together, starting with 3 cups of flour. Add more flour as necessary; the resulting dough should be wet, but not too sticky, you should be able to spread it afterwards.
2. Knead the dough and let is rest for two hours or so. It should visibly expand.
3. With a rolling pin, spread the dough on a flat and floured surface, until it’s ~1cm thick. Cut it into discs with a cookie cutter, a glass, or similar; I aim for 8cm diameter discs but you can make them larger or smaller as you want.
4. Let the discs rest again, for 90min or so. Note they’ll expand mostly vertically, the discs won’t get meaningfully larger but they do get thicker.
5. Deep-fry the discs in oil, 180°C, until golden.
6. Sprinkle sugar over them, preferably while still hot.
7. Let them cool, make a small cut on their sides, and use the cut to fill them with a sweet paste of your choice.

Notes:

• from my experience, the actual amount of flour varies quite a bit. That’s why I suggest starting with 3 cups and add more as needed.
• don’t spread the dough too thick. Otherwise it gets raw inside. [insert Gordon Ramsay meme.]
• as you cut the dough into discs, the leftovers can (and should) be rolled together, for a second batch. Do note however this second batch of dough tends to be denser than the first one, so you might want to roll it thinner than the first one.
• fillings are up to your taste. There’s no “wrong” answer, but you’ll probably want something with strong flavour. Common fillings here are jams, dulce de leche, whipped cream, chocolate ganache, guava cheese. I’ll also provide recipes for two that IMO work great.

Pastry cream:

• two yolks
• 1 carton of condensed milk (400ml)
• 400ml whole milk
• 1 Tbsp cornstarch

Just mix all ingredients and let them cook over low fire, while mixing constantly, until it thickens. Then let it cool.

Homemade strawberry jam:

• 500g strawberries
• juice of one lime
• sugar to taste

Clean and coarsely cut the strawberries. Then cook them with the lime juice and sugar, until they start breaking down. Then let it cool in a hidden place so your mum doesn’t eat it all by the spoon. (Mine did it once.)