The name is something of a geographical puzzle. In Berlin itself, the pastry is not called a Berliner — it’s called a Pfannkuchen, meaning pancake, a term that confuses visitors and locals from other parts of Germany alike. The Berliner name is used everywhere else in the country, which has led to the enduring theory that John F. Kennedy’s famous 1963 declaration “Ich bin ein Berliner” was an inadvertent claim to be a jelly doughnut. Linguists and historians have largely debunked this as a myth — context makes the meaning clear — but it remains one of the more persistent pieces of culinary folklore attached to any pastry.

The doughnut’s origins are traced to a Prussian baker who, according to one account, was too old to serve in the military during the Napoleonic Wars and instead baked cannon-shaped pastries for the troops, frying them over an open fire when no oven was available. Like most charming origin stories, the details are fuzzy. What is more reliably documented is that fried, filled yeasted pastries were widespread across Central Europe by the 18th century, and the Berliner as a distinct form became firmly established in German baking culture by the 19th.

Berliners are closely associated with Carnival season — Karneval or Fasching — when they are traditionally eaten in large quantities in the days before Lent. A long-standing prank involves filling one or more Berliners in a batch with mustard instead of jam and serving them to unsuspecting guests. It is considered funny. Whether the recipient agrees tends to depend on how much they were looking forward to the jam.

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Regional Roots

• Germany