Donuts trace their roots to Dutch settlers who brought a fried dough treat called olykoeks, or “oil cakes,” to North America in the 17th century. But fried dough itself is far older and has no single birthplace. Variations appeared independently across Europe for centuries, and the modern ring-shaped donut we know today took shape in the United States through a series of happy accidents and industrial innovations.
Dutch Oil Cakes in Colonial America
The most direct ancestor of the American donut is the olykoek, a ball of sweetened dough fried in animal fat. The recipe appeared in a 17th-century Dutch cookbook called De Verstandige Kock (The Sensible Cook), which is the earliest known printed recipe for the treat. Olykoeks were made from flour, eggs, milk, yeast, and apple, then dropped into a pot of hot oil.
They had a problem, though. The outside often burned before the center cooked through. Dutch cooks adapted by stuffing dried fruits, almonds, and apples into the middle of the dough ball, which helped heat reach the core more evenly. When Dutch settlers arrived in what was then New Netherlands (later New York), they likely brought this tradition with them. By 1809, Washington Irving described the treat in his satirical A History of New York, writing about “an enormous dish of balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog’s fat, and called dough-nuts, or oly koeks.”
Europe’s Older Fried Dough Traditions
The Dutch weren’t the only ones frying dough. The earliest known recipe for a jelly-filled donut appeared in 1485 in Kuchenmeisterei (Mastery of the Kitchen), a German cookbook published in Nuremberg. It described “Gefüllte Krapfen,” a jam-filled yeasted bread dough deep-fried in lard. This was one of the first cookbooks ever printed using the Gutenberg press, and it stayed in print for nearly 200 years through at least 20 editions.
Those jelly-filled pastries eventually became known as Berliners in the 1800s, named after a legend about a patriotic baker from Berlin who served as a regimental baker for the Prussian Army. The same basic idea spread across Europe under different names. In Hungary, they’re called bécsi fánk, meaning “Viennese doughnut.” In Portugal, they became bolas de Berlim, filled with an egg-yolk cream and sliced open so the filling is visible. Portuguese immigrants also carried their own version, the malasada, to Hawaii in 1878 when laborers from Madeira and the Azores arrived to work on sugar plantations. Malasadas remain a staple in Hawaiian food culture today.
How the Donut Got Its Hole
The ring shape that defines the modern donut came from a 16-year-old cook’s assistant named Hanson Gregory. In 1847, Gregory was working aboard a schooner where sailors complained that their fried cakes were greasy and heavy in the center. The crew called them “sinkers.” Gregory’s fix was simple: he took the top of a pepper shaker and punched out the centers before frying. With no thick middle to stay raw or soak up oil, the cakes cooked evenly and came out lighter. The hole stuck.
World War I and the Donut Lassies
Donuts were a household treat for decades, but World War I turned them into an American icon. Salvation Army volunteers, known as “Donut Lassies,” began frying donuts for soldiers in frontline camps in France. Two of the most notable lassies, Margaret Sheldon and Helen Purviance, realized the camps had enough flour, grease, sugar, and baking powder to make donuts even under wartime conditions.
On their first day, they managed just 150 donuts. By the next day, they’d doubled that. Once fully set up, a single team of lassies could fry between 2,500 and 9,000 donuts daily. The effect on morale was enormous. One soldier reportedly said, “Gee, if this is war, let it continue.” Another said that looking through the donut hole gave him “visions of mom back home.” By the war’s end, donuts had become emotionally tied to patriotism and home, and returning soldiers brought that craving back with them. National Donut Day, still celebrated on the first Friday in June, was established in 1938 as a tribute to those Salvation Army volunteers.
The Machine That Made Donuts Everywhere
The post-war demand for donuts caught the attention of Adolph Levitt, a Russian-born baker running a shop in Harlem. In 1920, he built the first automatic donut machine, which he called the “Wonderful Almost Human Automatic Doughnut Machine.” It formed rings of dough, dropped them into hot oil, flipped them at timed intervals, and pushed them out when done. Later versions added a belt that carried finished donuts through a glaze or sugar coating.
Levitt’s machine changed the economics of donuts entirely. He founded the Doughnut Corporation of America and began selling the machines to bakeries across the country. Donut shops like his Mayflower shop started appearing, though they remained mostly local through the 1920s and didn’t spread widely until after World War II. The donut’s cultural status peaked early: at the 1934 World’s Fair in Chicago, it was designated “the food hit of the Century of Progress.”
Why We Spell It “Donut”
“Doughnut” is the original spelling, and it’s still considered correct. But the shorter “donut” owes its popularity largely to two competing chains. Bill Rosenberg founded Dunkin’ Donuts in 1950 using the simplified spelling. His brother-in-law, Harry Winokur, launched the rival Mister Donut after the two had a falling out. They disagreed on how to run a business but agreed on how to spell their product.
As Dunkin’ expanded to over 1,000 franchise locations by the late 1970s, “donut” began trending in popularity. Dunkin’s parent company later acquired Mister Donut’s U.S. operations in 1990, further cementing the shorter version. By the late 20th century, Merriam-Webster added “donut” as an accepted variant. Linguists have described this as a case of genericization, where brand identity reshapes everyday language.