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Prussian Dumplings
Mix one pound of fine flour with a pinch of salt, half an ounce of sugar, the same of yeast, one ounce of butter, a beaten egg, and a gill and a half of tepid milk and water in equal proportions. Set the dough aside to rise. When well risen take up pieces the size of a walnut, open them up and insert a little stiff jam of any sort, and close up neatly. Then fry to a good brown in hot fat. Dust with sugar, and serve on a very hot dish. If liked a few currants may be added to the dough. Probable cost, 1d. each.
A yeasted jam doughnut in all but name, and it behaves like one. The dough is soft and lightly enriched, so the sealing of the jam is where the recipe succeeds or fails.
- Seal the jam properlyThe one instruction that matters: flatten each walnut-sized piece, put no more than a scant teaspoon of jam in the centre, and pinch the seam tightly, then set the dumpling seam-side down to prove. A weak seal blows open in the fat and the jam burns black in seconds.
- The gillIn a British book a gill is 5 fl oz, so a gill and a half is 7½ fl oz — about 210 ml — half tepid milk, half water. Hold back a little and add it as needed; modern flour absorbs differently.
- YeastHalf an ounce (14 g) means fresh compressed yeast. Substitute about 1½ teaspoons instant dried yeast, or about 2 teaspoons active dry crumbled into the warm liquid.
- Fine flour"Fine flour" here is plain white flour, not a high-protein bread flour. Either works; plain flour gives the softer, cakier crumb the recipe expects.
- Rising"Set aside to rise" means until roughly doubled — 1 to 1½ hours in a warm room. Give the shaped dumplings a second prove of 20–30 minutes before frying, or they cook dense.
- Frying temperatureHot fat means 350–360F (175–180C). Above that the outside browns before the centre sets; below it the dough drinks fat. Fry in small batches, 2–3 minutes a side, turning once.
- Stiff jamInsist on the word "stiff". A loose or runny preserve thins with heat and forces the seam; a thick set jam, or one boiled down briefly and cooled, stays put.
- Yield and servingA pound of flour gives roughly two dozen to thirty dumplings, depending on how generously you take the walnut-sized pieces. Dust with caster sugar while still hot so it clings, and serve the same day — they stale quickly.
The price note — a penny each — tells you the appeal: fried yeast dough with a spoonful of jam was among the cheapest hot puddings a late-Victorian kitchen could produce. The name points to the German-speaking tradition of filled yeast fritters, of which the Berliner Pfannkuchen is the best known relative; British cookery writers of the period sometimes applied "Prussian", "German" or "Berlin" to such dishes with little consistency. The dough is close kin to that used for fried doughnuts. The recipe offers currants as an option, and directs that the dumplings be served on a very hot dish.