The Krapfen -- a filled yeast donut baked floating in hot fat -- comes in many shapes, sizes, and guises. Most commonly, a Krapfen is a round donut filled with apricot jam, the Marillenkrapfen (sometimes called a Faschingskrapfen for the holiday with which it is associated). A smaller version thereof is sometimes called a Jourkrapfen. Other popular and year-round Krapfen include those filled with vanilla pudding or a hazelnut creme, the Vanillekrapfen and the Nougatkrapfen. In the spring, during strawberry season, it is easier to find Erbeerkrapfen, those filled with strawberry jam. In some bakeries like Der Mann, it is possible in the fall and winter to find a Powidlkrapfen, filled with plum jam and topped with poppy seeds. And then there's the Bauernkrapfen, the ur-krapfen if you like, a sort-of messy, open-faced Krapfen which, rather than being stuffed with an apricot or apple goop, is shaped rather like a rubber ring with a divot in the center, awaiting the filling once fried.
Another type of Krapfen is the Bojar, Bojaren, or Bojarkrapfen -- depending on which bakery you're in. The boyars were, within the feudal societies of Bulgaria, Lithuania, Romania, Moldova, and various parts of what would become the Russian Empire, an elite of the highest rank below that of a duke but above a marquess. Now, since the boyars and the Bojarkrapfen seem to have nothing to do with each other -- similarly, there's also a type of cream cheese sold by a particular dairy called Bojar -- it can be assumed that 'bojar' is one of those words used in Austria to denote something as being different, on the one hand, and more refined on the other. A Bojarkrapfen is, in a sense, an elite Krapfen and it is distinguished on two or possibly three grounds. The first is its shape, that of a torpedo as opposed to a round. The second is its filling, Powidl instead of apricot, vanilla, or hazelnut. The third is its glaze and topping of sliced and toasted almonds instead of mere powdered sugar. Fit for a baron, indeed.
