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A doughnut, or donut, is a deep-fried piece of dough or batter. The two most common shapes are the flattened sphere, which is injected with jam/jelly or another sweet filling; and the ring doughnut, which was traditionally formed by wrapping the dough around a stick but now is made with a cutter leaving a small piece cut from the center which is separately cooked as a doughnut hole.

Overview

Doughnuts can be made using a yeast-based bread dough (raised doughnuts), or a special type of cake batter. Cake doughnuts are often covered (on top) with a brightly coloured glace icing or chocolate. Some doughnuts are dredged in cinnamon sugar, while others are filled with jam or custard, briefly soaked in a sugary flavoured solution, or glazed. Some doughnuts are made with apple cider (the non-alcoholic kind) and are common at cider mills and farm markets. Many kinds of doughnuts are eaten warm.

Donuts have become a part of Western culture. The cartoon character Homer Simpson is especially fond of doughnuts, while popular mythology has American police officers addicted to them. There are entire chains of retail stores devoted to the selling of hot fresh doughnuts to eager customers, eg. Dunkin' Donuts, Krispy Kreme, Tim Hortons, Winchell's Donuts, Country Style and many other chain stores.

Other sweet fried pastries very similar to doughnuts include churros and fritters.

History

Doughnuts have a controversial history. One traditional story says that they imported into the USA by Dutch settlers.

Washington Irving's reference to "doughnuts" in 1809 in his History of New York is believed to be the first known printed use of the word.

Types

A type of doughnut was recorded in the 19th century on the Isle of Wight, UK, with a different recipe from from the type made in mainland Europe.

In Poland the round jam-filled doughnuts eaten especially - though not exclusively - during the Carnival are called pączki.

In Italy - zeppole.

Spain and Mexico have the churro, which may not generally be thought of as a doughnut, but has similar characteristics. A churro is a thin cylinder of deep-fried pastry with a characteristic 'ridged' surface, due to being extruded through a star shaped hole. It is also popular in the US where it is sometimes referred to as a Spanish Doughnut or Mexican Doughnut.

In Germany, the doughnut equivalents are called Bismarcks or Berliners and don't have the typical ring shape but instead are solid. (German doughnuts are sometimes called Berlin Doughnuts in the USA.) John F. Kennedy once famously said "Ich bin ein Berliner", which amuses some commentators because it has a double meaning: both "I am a citizen of Berlin" and "I am a jam (jelly) doughnut".

In Holland, there is a type of pastry item called Oliebollen which is referred to in recipe books as Dutch Doughnuts (or occasionally as 'Dutch Donuts') which contain pieces of apple and/or dried fruit like raisins, and is traditionally eaten as part of new year celebrations.

In the Hudson Valley (which includes the Catskill Mountains) in New York State, USA, a doughnut is sometimes called an olicook, which derives from the Dutch Oliekoeke or 'oil cake' (sometimes also called olykoecks).

Trivia

Doughnuts, as ring shaped items, are an important explanatory tool in the science of topology where the ring donut shape (a ring with a circular cross section) is called a torus or toroid, and an example of using the ring doughnut as an illustrative term can be found in popular explanations of the Poincaré Conjecture.

External Link

• LovelyRecipes.com, with over 4000 doughnut recipes
• Food Recipes and Information