A doughnut or donut is a type of fried or baked good made from leavened dough. It is popular in many countries and is prepared in various forms as a sweet snack that can be homemade or purchased in bakeries, supermarkets, food stalls, and franchised specialty vendors.
Doughnuts are usually deep fried from a leavened dough. Baked or cake doughnuts are made with a thick leavened batter. Various toppings and flavors are used for different types, such as sugar, chocolate or maple glazing.
The two most common types are the ring doughnut and the filled doughnut, which is injected with fruit preserves (the jelly doughnut), cream, custard, or other sweet fillings. Small pieces of dough are sometimes cooked as doughnut holes. Once fried, doughnuts may be glazed with a sugar icing, spread with icing or chocolate, or topped with sugar, cinnamon, sprinkles or fruit. Other shapes include balls, flattened spheres, twists, and other forms. Doughnut varieties are also divided into cake doughnuts, including the old-fashioned (known outside of the US as baked doughnuts) and yeast-risen doughnuts. Doughnuts are often accompanied by coffee or milk in the US.
History Early history A recipe for a deep-fried dough ball was recorded by Cato the Elder in his De agri cultura, using cheese, honey, and poppy seeds, called globi. Similar types of fried dough recipes have either spread to, or originated, in other parts of Europe and the World.
A 13th-century Arabic cookbook, written by Ibn Razīn al-Tujībī contains a recipe for a doughnut-like variant of sfenj, made by frying leavened semolina dough, the dough is meant to be shaped into a small ball, the recipe also calls for shaping the dough into a Ka'ak with a hole in the middle to test its proofing. This is done before frying the first batch and results in a shape reminiscent of a modern doughnut.
The cookbook Küchenmeisterei (Mastery of the Kitchen), published in Nuremberg in 1485, offers a recipe for "Gefüllte Krapfen", stuffed, fried dough cakes.
The Spanish and Portuguese churro is a choux pastry dough that would also be served in a ring-shape. The recipe may have been brought from, or introduced to China, in the 16th century.
England and North America Dutch settlers brought olykoek ("oil cake") to New York (or New Amsterdam) in the early 18th century. These doughnuts closely resembled later ones, but the ring donut had not yet appeared.The History of Doughnuts , The Spruce
A recipe for fried dough "nuts" was published, in 1750 England, under the title "How to make Hertfordshire Cakes, Nuts and Pincushions", in The Country Housewife's Family Companion by William Ellis.
A recipe labelled "dow nuts", again from Hertfordshire, was found in a book of recipes and domestic tips written around 1800, by the wife of Baron Thomas Dimsdale, the recipe being given to the dowager Baroness by an acquaintance who transcribed for her the cooking instructions for a "dow nut".
The first cookbook using the near conventional "dough nuts" spelling was possibly the 1803 edition of "The Frugal Housewife: Or, Complete Woman Cook", which included dough nuts in an appendix of American recipes.
One of the earliest mentions of "dough-nut" was in Washington Irving's 1809 book A History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty:
The name oly koeks was almost certainly related to the oliekoek: a Dutch delicacy of "sweetened cake fried in fat."See entries for oliebol and oliekoek in
In the 1960s, frozen baked doughnuts started to be sold in supermarkets in the United States.
Etymology
"Dough nut" One of the earliest known literary usages of the term dates to an 1808 short storyOriginals, Selections, &C. for the Times. Sketches and Views-No. V; The Times, page , vol. I, iss. 8; 30 January 1808; Boston, Massachusetts. describing a spread of "fire-cakes and dough-nuts". Washington Irving described "dough-nuts", in his 1809 History of New York, as "balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog's fat, and called dough-nuts, or olykoeks." These "nuts" of fried dough might now be called doughnut holes. The word nut is here used in the earlier sense of "small rounded cake or cookie", also seen in ginger nut.doughnut in the American Heritage Dictionary Doughnut is the traditional spelling and still dominates even in the United States, though donut is often used.Norbert Schmitt and Richard Marsden (2006) Why is English like that?: historical answers to hard ELT questions, University of Michigan Press, , p. 166: "... and British English in the spelling of individual words include ax/axe (though the British form is also frequently used in America), check/ cheque (a money order), donut/doughnut, draft/draught (an air current), mold/mould,..."Richard Ellis (2003) Communication skills: stepladders to success for the professional, Intellect Books, , p. 113 "... US spelling is influencing users to spell programme as program, center for centre and donut for doughnut." At present, doughnut and the shortened form donut are both pervasive in American English.Janet Sue Terry (2005) A Rich, Deliciously Satisfying Collection of Breakfast Recipes, Just My Best Publishing Company, , p. 233 "At present, "donut" and "doughnut" are both pervasive in American English, but only "doughnut" is listed in Thorndike and Lorge's (1942) The Teacher's Word Book of 30,000 Words. There are sparse instances of the "donut" spelling variation prior to WWII. For instance, it is mentioned in an LA Times article dated August 10, 1929. There, Bailey Millard complains about the decline of spelling, and that he "can't swallow the 'wel-dun donut' nor the everso'gud bred'." "
"Donut"
The first known printed use of donut was in Peck's Bad Boy and his Pa by George W. Peck, published in 1900, in which a character is quoted as saying, "Pa said he guessed he hadn't got much appetite, and he would just drink a cup of coffee and eat a donut." According to author John T. Edge the alternative spelling "donut" was invented in the 1920s when the New York-based Display Doughnut Machine Corporation abbreviated the word to make it more pronounceable by the foreigners they hoped would buy their automated doughnut making equipment.John T. Edge (2006) Donuts: an American passion, Penguin Group US, : "Donuts" came to the fore in the 1920s, when the New York-based Doughnut Machine Corporation set its eyes upon foreign markets. "In order to obviate difficulty in pronouncing 'doughnuts' in foreign languages," a press release announced .." The donut spelling also showed up in a Los Angeles Times article dated August 10, 1929, in which Bailey Millard jokingly complains about the decline of spelling, and that he "can't swallow the 'wel-dun donut' nor the ever so 'gud bred'".
The interchangeability of the two spellings can be found in a series of "National Donut Week" articles in The New York Times that covered the 1939 World's Fair. In four articles beginning 9 October, two mention the donut spelling. Dunkin' renamed in 2019, was named Dunkin' Donuts in 1950, following its 1948 founding under the name Open Kettle in Quincy, Massachusetts, is the oldest surviving company to use the donut variation; other chains, such as the defunct Mayflower Doughnut Corporation (1931), did not use that spelling.Sally L. Steinberg Collection of Doughnut Ephemera, 1920s–1987: "In 1931, the company opened the first Mayflower doughnut shop in New York City; ultimately, 18 shops were opened across the country—the first retail doughnut..." [NOTE: Smithsonian and several 1950s court cases call it "Mayflower Doughnut Corporation" prior to World War II]. According to the Oxford Dictionaries, while "doughnut" is used internationally, the spelling "donut" is American,doughnut. Oxford Dictionaries Online (World English) "The beginning of doughnut is spelled dough- (the spelling donut is American)." with Krispy Kreme being a notable exception. The spelling "donut" remained rare until the 1950s, and has since grown significantly in popularity."donut, doughnut", Google Ngram viewer
In Australia, the brand Donut King uses the spelling "donut".
Types
Rings Hanson Gregory, an American, claimed to have invented the ring-shaped doughnut in 1847 aboard a lime-trading ship when he was 16 years old. Gregory was dissatisfied with the greasiness of doughnuts twisted into various shapes and with the raw center of regular doughnuts. He claimed to have punched a hole in the center of dough with the ship's tin pepper box, and to have later taught the technique to his mother. Smithsonian Magazine states that his mother, Elizabeth Gregory, "made a deep-fried dough that cleverly used her son's spice cargo of nutmeg and cinnamon, along with lemon rind," and "put hazelnuts or walnuts in the center, where the dough might not cook through", and called the food 'doughnuts'.
Ring doughnuts may be formed by a number of methods, including joining the ends of a long, skinny piece of dough into a ring, or using a doughnut cutter, which simultaneously cuts the outside and inside shape, leaving a doughnut-shaped piece of dough and a doughnut hole (the dough removed from the center). This smaller piece of dough can be cooked and served as a "doughnut hole" or added back to the batch to make more doughnuts. A disk-shaped doughnut can also be stretched and pinched into a torus until the center breaks to form a hole. Alternatively, a doughnut depositor can be used to place a circle of liquid dough (batter) directly into the fryer.
There are two types of ring doughnuts, those made from a yeast-based dough for raised doughnuts, or those made from a special type of cake batter. Yeast-raised doughnuts contain about 25% oil by weight, whereas cake doughnuts' oil content is around 20%, but have extra fat included in the batter before frying. Cake doughnuts are fried for about 90 seconds at approximately , turning once. Yeast-raised doughnuts absorb more oil because they take longer to fry, about 150 seconds, at . Cake doughnuts typically weigh between , whereas yeast-raised doughnuts average and are generally larger, and taller (due to rising) when finished.
Daniela Galarza, for Eater, wrote that "the now-standard doughnut's hole is still up for debate. Food writer Michael Krondl surmises that the shape came from recipes that called for the dough to be shaped like a jumble – a once common ring-shaped cookie. In Cuisine and Culture: A History of Food and People, culinary historian Linda Civitello writes that the hole was invented because it allowed the doughnuts to cook faster. By 1870 doughnut cutters shaped in two concentric circles, one smaller than the other, began to appear in home-shopping catalogues".
Topping
After frying, ring doughnuts are often topped. Raised doughnuts are generally covered with a glaze (icing). Cake doughnuts can also be glazed, powdered with confectioner's sugar, or covered with cinnamon and granulated sugar. They are also often topped with cake frosting (top only) and sometimes sprinkled with coconut, chopped peanuts, or sprinkles.
Holes Doughnut holes are small, bite-sized doughnuts that were traditionally made from the dough taken from the center of ring doughnuts. Before long, doughnut sellers saw the opportunity to market "holes" as a novelty and many chains offer their own variety, some with their own brand names such as "Munchkins" from Dunkin' Donuts and "Timbits" from Tim Hortons.
Traditionally, doughnut holes are made by frying the dough removed from the center portion of the doughnut.. Consequently, they are considerably smaller than a standard doughnut and tend to be spherical. Similar to standard doughnuts, doughnut holes may be topped with confections, such as glaze or powdered sugar.