Krispy Kreme
Krispy Kreme Original Glazed Copycat Recipe
A very soft enriched dough, a short proof, forty-five seconds a side, and a thin glaze applied immediately. The heat …
How to Make Dunkin' Boston Kreme Doughnut at Home
A Filled Doughnut Is a Custard Recipe Wearing a Doughnut Costume
A custard that holds its shape inside a doughnut instead of running out of it.
AI-generated illustration created for food.fast. It is not photographic evidence of a prepared batch.
The dough is the same as the Original Glazed and there is no point repeating it - the technique, the proving and the frying are identical, with one change: do not cut a hole.
What makes this a different recipe is the filling. Crème pâtissière - pastry cream - is a custard thickened with cornflour as well as egg, and the cornflour is why it can hold its shape inside a doughnut where a crème anglaise would run straight out.
It is also the component people are most nervous about and it is genuinely straightforward, provided you accept one thing: you have to boil it. A pastry cream that has not been brought to a proper boil for a full minute will be thin and will taste of raw flour.
How this page shows its working
The method gives quantities, timings and observable cues rather than asking you to guess. The 6 cases in If it goes wrong explain likely causes and corrective action.
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Why pastry cream has to boil, when custard must not
This is the thing that trips people up, because everything they know about custard says do not boil it.
For a crème anglaise - a pouring custard thickened with egg yolk alone - that is correct. Egg proteins set at around 82 °C and curdle above about 85, so a pouring custard has to be held below.
Crème pâtissière contains cornflour, and cornflour changes everything. Starch granules only fully gelatinise and reach their thickening power at a rolling boil. And the starch physically protects the egg proteins from curdling - it gets between them and stops them linking up.
So a pastry cream must reach a full rolling boil and be held there, whisking hard, for one full minute. Under-boiled, it is thin and tastes of raw flour. That minute is the recipe.
It will look terrifyingly thick at that point. It loosens as it cools and then sets again, and it will need whisking smooth before it goes into a piping bag.
Filling a doughnut without wrecking it
Three rules.
Fill from the side, not the top. A hole in the side is hidden once the glaze goes on and does not weaken the top, which has to support the chocolate.
Make a channel first. Push a chopstick or the handle of a wooden spoon into the side, most of the way through, and waggle it to create a cavity. Filling without a channel just compresses the crumb and the custard sits in one lump near the entry point.
Fill until you feel resistance and then stop. Roughly 30 g per doughnut. Too much and the doughnut splits along its equator, which cannot be hidden.
Cool them completely first. Piping cold custard into a warm doughnut melts it and it runs out.
A piping bag with a 6 mm plain nozzle, or a Bismarck nozzle if you have one - a long thin tube designed for exactly this. A freezer bag with the corner snipped off works.
How to make it, step by step
The custard, which can be made a day ahead
-
Heat the milk to steaming
Not boiling. If using a vanilla pod, split it in and let it infuse off the heat for ten minutes.
About 4 min -
Whisk the yolks, sugar and cornflour to a smooth paste
Pale and thick. No lumps of cornflour - they will not disappear later.
About 2 min -
Temper: hot milk into the eggs, slowly, whisking
A third of the milk first, poured in a thin stream while whisking, then the rest. Pouring it all in at once scrambles the eggs.
About 2 min -
Back in the pan, and boil for one full minute
Medium heat, whisking constantly and scraping the corners. It will thicken suddenly and then start to bubble. Count sixty seconds from the first bubble.
TipIt will look impossibly thick. That is correct, and it is the step that makes it set rather than run.About 6 min -
Butter, vanilla and salt off the heat, then chill
Whisk until smooth, press cling film directly onto the surface so no skin forms, and refrigerate for at least two hours.
About 2 hr
The doughnuts
-
Make and prove the dough, cutting rounds with no hole
8 cm rounds, proved thirty minutes on oiled parchment squares.
About 40 min -
Fry at 175 °C, 60 to 75 seconds a side
Slightly longer than a ring doughnut, because there is more dough in the middle. Onto a rack and cool completely.
About 16 min
Fill and glaze
-
Whisk the chilled custard smooth and bag it
It will have set firm. Whisk it hard for thirty seconds until it is smooth and pipeable again.
About 3 min -
Channel and fill, about 30 g each
Chopstick into the side, waggled. Nozzle in, squeeze until you feel resistance, stop.
About 8 min -
Whisk the glaze and dip the tops
Icing sugar, cocoa, hot milk, melted butter and vanilla, whisked smooth. It should ribbon off a spoon. Dip the top of each doughnut, lift, let it drip, and set on a rack.
About 6 min
What else the custard does, which is most of a bakery counter
A batch of crème pâtissière is the base of a surprising amount:
- Fruit tarts - a pastry case, custard, fruit on top.
- Éclairs and profiteroles - the same filling, a choux case.
- Custard slices - between two sheets of puff pastry.
- Trifle - the layer everybody argues about.
- Doughnut filling of any kind, obviously.
It keeps three days in the fridge with cling film pressed onto the surface, and it does not freeze - the starch structure breaks down and it goes watery on thawing.
To flavour it: infuse the milk. Coffee beans, a cinnamon stick, citrus zest, a bay leaf. Ten minutes off the heat, then strain. Chocolate is the exception - 100 g of chopped dark chocolate whisked in at the end, off the heat.
Ways to change it once you have made it once
Jam filled
Good raspberry or strawberry jam, loosened with a teaspoon of water, in place of the custard. Far easier and genuinely good.
Chocolate custard
100 g of chopped dark chocolate whisked into the finished custard off the heat.
Coffee cream
Infuse the milk with 3 tbsp of coffee beans for ten minutes and strain. Excellent with the chocolate glaze.
What went wrong, and how to fix it
Each entry names a likely cause as well as a correction, so the advice remains useful when equipment, ingredients or batch size differ.
The custard is thin
- Why it happened
- Not boiled for a full minute.
- What to do
- Back in the pan and boil, whisking, for a minute. Cornflour needs a rolling boil to reach full thickening power.
It tastes of raw flour
- Why it happened
- Same cause - under-boiled.
- What to do
- Same fix. It genuinely has to boil.
Scrambled egg in the custard
- Why it happened
- The hot milk went in too fast.
- What to do
- Pass it through a sieve - it rescues it. Temper slowly next time.
The doughnut split when I filled it
- Why it happened
- Overfilled, or no channel made first.
- What to do
- About 30 g each, and make a cavity with a chopstick first.
The custard ran out
- Why it happened
- The doughnuts were still warm.
- What to do
- Completely cool before filling.
The glaze is dull rather than glossy
- Why it happened
- The milk was cold.
- What to do
- Hot milk, and the melted butter is what gives the shine.
Questions people actually ask about this recipe
Why does pastry cream need to boil when custard must not?
Because it contains cornflour. Starch only reaches full thickening power at a rolling boil, and it also protects the eggs from curdling.
How much filling goes in a doughnut?
About 30 g. Make a channel with a chopstick first and stop when you feel resistance.
Can I make the custard ahead?
Yes - three days in the fridge with cling film pressed onto the surface. Whisk it smooth before piping.
Can I freeze filled doughnuts?
No. The custard's starch structure breaks down and it goes watery.
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