The Italian doughnut filled with custard or jam and often dusted with sugar is the bombolone.
Bomboloni are soft, yeast-raised doughnuts associated especially with Tuscany, though versions are traditional across several Italian regions. They are usually fried, coated in granulated sugar, and filled with crema pasticcera, jam, chocolate, or other sweet fillings. Unlike ring doughnuts, they are typically solid and rounded, with the filling added after frying.
The name is related to bomba, meaning “bomb,” a reference to the pastry’s plump shape. In areas once under Austrian rule, including Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia, bomboloni share ancestry with the Austrian krapfen or Berliner and may include eggs. The Tuscan style traditionally differs by omitting eggs, and some recipes add mashed potato for a particularly soft texture.
Bombolone is sometimes confused with sfogliatella, which is a layered, shell-shaped pastry, or cannoli, which uses a crisp tube filled after frying. Panna cotta is not a fried doughnut at all; it is a set cream dessert.