Doughnut

History

A recipe for deep-fried dough balls called globi, using cheese, honey, and poppy seeds, was recorded by Cato the Elder. A 13th-century Arabic cookbook by Ibn Razīn al-Tujībī includes a doughnut-like variant of sfenj made from fried leavened semolina dough, with a hole in the middle. The 1485 cookbook Küchenmeisterei offers a recipe for stuffed, fried dough cakes.

The Spanish and Portuguese churro is a choux pastry dough often served in a ring shape. Dutch settlers brought olykoek to New York in the early 18th century. A 1750 English recipe for fried dough nuts appeared in William Ellis's work. A recipe labeled dow nuts from Hertfordshire was found around 1800.

The 1803 edition of The Frugal Housewife used the spelling dough nuts. Washington Irving's 1809 book mentions dough-nuts. In the 1960s, frozen baked doughnuts began selling in US supermarkets.

Etymology

An 1808 short story uses the term dough-nuts. Washington Irving's 1809 History of New York describes dough-nuts as balls of sweetened dough fried in hog's fat. The word nut here means small rounded cake or cookie. Doughnut is the traditional spelling, while donut is a shortened form.

The first known printed use of donut was in George W. Peck's 1900 book. Author John T. Edge states the spelling donut was invented in the 1920s by the Display Doughnut Machine Corporation to make the word more pronounceable for foreigners. The donut spelling appeared in a 1929 Los Angeles Times article.

Dunkin' Donuts, founded in 1950, is the oldest surviving company to use the donut variation. According to Oxford Dictionaries, doughnut is used internationally while donut is American, with Krispy Kreme as an exception. The donut spelling remained rare until the 1950s and has since grown in popularity. In Australia, Donut King uses the spelling donut.

Types

Hanson Gregory claimed to have invented the ring-shaped doughnut in 1847 by punching a hole in the center of dough. His mother Elizabeth Gregory made deep-fried dough with nutmeg, cinnamon, and lemon rind, and put nuts in the center. Ring doughnuts can be formed by joining ends of dough, using a cutter, or stretching a disk. There are yeast-based raised doughnuts and cake doughnuts.

Yeast-raised doughnuts contain about 25% oil by weight, while cake doughnuts have about 20% oil but extra fat in the batter. Cake doughnuts fry for about 90 seconds at 190 to 198 °C, turning once. Yeast-raised doughnuts fry for about 150 seconds at 182 to 190 °C. Cake doughnuts weigh between 24 and 28 g, while yeast-raised doughnuts average 38 g and are generally larger and taller.

Regional variations

Cantonese cuisine includes ngàuhleisōu, an oval-shaped pastry. A spherical food called saa1 jung is similar to a cream puff but denser with a doughnut-like texture. A Beijing variant called gaoli dousha is filled with red bean paste.

Many Chinese cultures make shuangbaotai, two conjoined balls of dough. Chinese restaurants in the US sometimes serve small fried pastries with condensed milk. Chinese cuisine features youtiao, long deep-fried doughnut sticks often served with congee or soy milk. In India, gulgula are sweetened deep-fried flour balls.

A savory ring-shaped snack called vada is made from dal, lentil, or potato flours. In North India, dahi-vada is soaked in curd and topped with chutney. In South India, vada is eaten with sambar and coconut chutney.

Did You Know?

• Per capita, Canadians consume the most doughnuts and have the most doughnut stores per capita.
• National Doughnut Day in the United States is on the first Friday of June, created by The Salvation Army in 1938 to honor members who served doughnuts to soldiers during World War I.
• The UK doughnut market was worth £421 million in 2024 and is expected to grow to £645 million by 2035.