A doughnut or donut is a type of fried dough confectionery or dessert food. The doughnut is popular in many countries and prepared in various forms as a sweet snack that can be homemade or purchased in bakeries, supermarkets, food stalls, and franchised specialty outlets. They are usually deep-fried from a flour dough, and typically either ring-shaped or without a hole and often filled.
In ancient Rome and Greece, cooks would fry strips of pastry dough and coat them with honey or fish sauce. In Medieval times, Arab cooks started frying up small portions of unsweetened yeast dough, drenching the plain fried blobs in sugary syrup to sweeten them. The fritters spread into northern Europe in the 1400′s and became popular throughout England, Germany and the Netherlands. In 15th century Germany, where sugar was hard to come by, they were often cooked savory with fillings like meat or mushroom.
The doughnut came to America with the Dutch who settled in Manhattan (then New Amsterdam). They called them olykoeks or oily cakes. These early doughnuts were simply balls of cake fried in pork fat until golden brown. Because the center of the cake did not cook as fast as the outside, the cakes were sometimes stuffed with fruit, nuts, or other fillings that did not require cooking.
The hole invention is generally attributed to Captain Hanson Gregory, a Dutch sailor whose mother made him some doughnuts for a voyage. There are many variations on this story but one is that on June 22, 1847, Captain Gregory’s ship hit a sudden storm. He impaled the doughnut on one of the spokes on the steering wheel to keep his hands free. The spoke drove a hole through the raw center of the doughnut and he said he liked the doughnuts better that way, minus the raw center
Doughnuts became popular in the US after American soliders returned home from WWI. During the war female Salvation Army workers known as “Doughnut Girls” would fry and distribute doughnuts to the American soldiers fighting in France. They offered a taste of home to the soldiers, who became known as “Doughboys.” Doughnut Girls were replaced by “Doughnut Dollies” during World War II.
A glazed doughnut commonly refers to a plain, yeasted doughnut in a sweet sugar glaze, though many other types of doughnuts have glazes, as well. Just about every American doughnut shop will make some version of these.
Doughnuts made from a cake-like batter, leavened not with yeast but baking powder or soda. The resulting texture is denser than a yeasted doughnut, and often a bit crustier. Cider doughnuts and old-fashioneds, fall within the cake doughnut category.
Old-fashioned doughnuts are cake doughnuts that tend to have an irregular ring shape. They also usually have a bit more crunch on the outside, both by nature of the style and due to the increased surface area. An "old-fashioned doughnut" generally suggests a plain sweet base, though chocolate old-fashioned doughnuts are quite prevalent as well.
A rich, light cake cut from a rolled dough and deep-fried, usually having a twisted oblong shape and sometimes topped with sugar or icing.
A round doughnut rather than a ring shape, generally made from a yeast dough, with a center of jelly, jam, or preserves. Often glazed or coated in powdered sugar. These are also know as Berliners, which are sometimes made with chocolate, champagne, custard, mocha, or advocaat filling.
Cake doughnuts that use mashed potatoes or potato starch, replacing some or all of the flour in the dough. They tend to be lighter than other cake doughnuts. A chain of potato doughnut shops called "Spudnuts" was established in the 1940s.
Made to resemble a Boston Creme pie; a filled doughnut with a vanilla custard filling and a chocolate glaze on top.
Recipe makes 8 to 12 doughnuts.
Recipe makes 16 doughnuts and holes.
Recipe makes 24 doughnuts.
Café du Monde is a coffee shop on Decatur Street in the French Quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is best known for its café au lait and its French-style beignets. In the New Orleans style, the coffee is blended with chicory. Beignets were declared the official state doughnut of Louisiana in 1986.
Voodoo Doughnut is an independent doughnut shop based in Portland, Oregon, known for its unusual doughnuts, eclectic decor, and iconic pink boxes featuring the company logo and illustrations of voodoo priests. In addition to two shops in Portland and one in Eugene, Voodoo recently expanded to Denver, Colorado.
Spudnut Shops were American franchised stores selling potato flour donuts called Spudnuts. The parent company no longer exists, but independent stores remain. The Charlottesville shop has several varieties including blueberry, chocolate glazed and cinnamon.
