At their best, gloriously shameless in richness, this basic pastry livens up the worst blahs of a boring day. We call them doughnuts here. In Germany they call them "Berliners." Fllled or glazed, they are a sinful pleasure of absolute gluttony. My friend Stephane, terrific chef and creator of the Zen Can Cook blog, created a version using curd made from Yuzu, a Japanese citrus fruit. Inspired by Stephane, I substituted meyer lemon for Yuzu, and then used baker Dan Lepard's wonderful rendition of Berliner dough along with the Zen Chef's curd recipe…a great match of two great personalities.

The fryer was a bit high on the first dip. I know, because I tweeted about it and heard back from others who told me. Thank you my digital friends. Thank you, Twitter! In between multitasking (baking pizza for staff dinner, evening prep, parties, chef's paper work, tweeting) I got it right, making a worthwhile afternoon treat. And after running out of lemon curd, I filled up the rest with lingonberry jam. As they say in Berlin, "fantastich!"