Berliner Pfannkuchen are the city's defining doughnut: deep-fried yeasted-dough rounds, filled with plum or rosehip jam, dusted with powdered sugar, sold at every bakery before Silvester.
The Berliner Pfannkuchen took its modern form in Prussia in the 18th century, reportedly invented by a Berlin sugar baker conscripted by Friedrich the Great who, unable to bake field bread, fried small round balls of dough in fat over a campfire. The Silvester (New Year's Eve) tradition of eating Berliner dates to the 1900s; one in a tray may be filled with mustard as a prank. The dish is called Berliner only outside Berlin (within the city it is Pfannkuchen). After 1990, the East-German Pfannkuchen-with-rosehip-jam variant returned to Berlin alongside the Western plum-jam standard. Berlin's bakeries (Brotgarten, Zeit fuer Brot) fry batches daily from October through Silvester.
2 editor picks for Berliner in Berlin, ranked by editorial score. All Berlin signature dishes · Berliner across every city.
Zeit fuer Brot ★ 4.5
prenzlauer-berg · Alte Schoenhauser Strasse 4, 10119 Berlin
Zeit fuer Brot on Berlin's Alte Schoenhauser Strasse has baked organic sourdough loaves and the city's most cited Zimtschnecke since 2009; the queue runs deep at 09:00 weekends.
Brotgarten ★ 4.4
charlottenburg · Seelingstrasse 30, 14059 Berlin
Brotgarten on Berlin's Seelingstrasse in Charlottenburg has baked organic German breads, rolls and Pfannkuchen since 1986; the New Year's Eve Pfannkuchen queue is a city ritual.