176 Fun Facts About Donuts

On which day is National Donut Day, when US doughnut shops give away freebies, observed each year?

First Friday of June: the day honours the Salvation Army women who fried doughnuts for American soldiers in World War I, and it began as a fundraiser during the Great Depression.

Which US president's line 'Ich bin ein Berliner' is often wrongly said to mean 'I am a jelly doughnut'?

John F. Kennedy: the tale is a legend that surfaced about twenty years after his 1963 West Berlin speech; his German was correct, and the crowd took the line as the pledge of solidarity he intended.

In data graphics, a 'doughnut chart' is a variation on which chart, with the centre cut out?

Pie chart: the doughnut version shows the same shares of a whole as a ring, and the blank centre earns its keep by leaving room for extra information, such as the total.

What sets apart The Donut Hole, a doughnut shop in La Puente, California?

Cars drive through giant doughnuts: customers enter one huge ring, order at the bakery in the middle and leave by the other, and by local tradition newlyweds make the drive too.

Which relief organisation still hears veterans' grumbles for briefly charging American soldiers for doughnuts in World War II?

The Red Cross: it began charging in 1942 only because the US Secretary of War asked it to, after free snacks for Americans upset British troops who had to pay, and the grudge outlived the war.

In which sport do hitters warm up with a weighted ring called a 'doughnut' slipped onto the bat?

Baseball: Yankees catcher Elston Howard is credited with inventing the weight, which makes the bat feel lighter at the plate and ended the old habit of swinging several bats at once on deck.

In American car slang, a 'donut' is a skinny, lightweight version of which part?

Spare tyre: the slim 'donut' is carried to save space and weight, and it is built so lightly that drivers are told to stay below about 50 mph and swap it for a proper tyre soon.

Which gas, given off by fermenting yeast, puffs up a raised doughnut before it reaches the fryer?

Carbon dioxide: yeast feeds on the sugars in the dough and gives off the gas, which is why raised doughnuts are left to rise, often twice, before they are fried.

Which mobile operating system named its 2009 version 1.6 'Donut'?

Android: Google named its early releases after sweets in alphabetical order, so Donut came after Cupcake and was followed by Eclair.

In which Vietnam War film does a drill instructor find a jelly doughnut hidden in a recruit's footlocker?

Full Metal Jacket: rather than punish Private Pyle, the sergeant makes the rest of the platoon do push-ups while Pyle eats the doughnut, and the other recruits later take it out on him.

In Boston and Philadelphia, which sugary doughnut topping is traditionally called 'jimmies'?

Sprinkles: 'jimmies' usually means the chocolate kind, and the candy maker Just Born claimed to have named them after an employee, though the word's real origin is uncertain.

Which ancient statesman, famed for demanding Carthage's destruction, recorded a recipe for globi, fried cheese-dough balls with honey?

Cato the Elder: his farming manual De agri cultura says to fry the cheese-and-spelt balls one or two at a time in hot lard, turning them with two rods, then spread them with honey and sprinkle on poppy seed.

In a classic German party prank, one jam doughnut in the batch is secretly filled with what?

Mustard: the doctored Berliner looks just like the rest, so nobody knows who will bite into it; German accounts also mention onions and even sawdust as joke fillings.

Which country was reported in the 2000s to eat the most doughnuts per person?

Canada: the doughnut is often seen as an American icon, but CBC called it Canada's unofficial national snack and counted more doughnut shops per capita there than anywhere else.

Which hybrid pastry did chef Dominique Ansel launch at his New York bakery in 2013, drawing long morning queues?

Cronut: Ansel spent two months perfecting the fried, filled croissant dough, and soon after the May 2013 launch desperate fans were begging for deliveries on Craigslist.

In which 1930s film does Clark Gable teach Claudette Colbert the proper way to dunk a doughnut?

It Happened One Night: Gable's reporter tells Colbert's runaway heiress that dunking is an art, a quick dip and straight into the mouth, because a doughnut left to soak goes soft and falls off.

Which twisted doughnut is, in its 'French' form, extruded from choux pastry?

Cruller: the French cruller is piped or extruded from wet, egg-rich choux batter, which puffs up with steam in the fryer and so needs no yeast or baking powder.

Sufganiyot got their modern name after Polish Jewish immigrants brought the ponchik to which country?

Israel: Polish Jewish immigrants brought the jam-filled ponchik to Mandatory Palestine, where it was renamed sufganiyah and, fried in oil rather than lard, became the standard Hanukkah treat.

The Dutch olykoek, an ancestor of the doughnut, has a name that literally means what?

Oil cake: olykoek joins the Dutch words for oil and cake; settlers brought the balls of sweetened dough to New Amsterdam, where they were fried in hog's fat.

Culinary historian Linda Civitello says the doughnut's hole was invented for what reason?

So it cooked faster: Civitello's answer tackles the raw, doughy middle, while food writer Michael Krondl suspects the ring simply copied the jumble, a once-common ring-shaped cookie.

Which cartoon character's love of doughnuts is a running joke and the focus of several episodes?

Homer Simpson: 'Mmm... doughnuts' is one of his catchphrases, and in the 1993 'Treehouse of Horror IV' segment he sells his soul to the devil for a single doughnut.

In Zootopia, doughnut-loving police receptionist Benjamin Clawhauser is which kind of big cat?

Cheetah: the joke is that the fastest animal on land is the plump, cheerful one behind the front desk, devoted to doughnuts and the pop star Gazelle.

Which type of donut often features a distinctive rectangular shape, sometimes topped with maple frosting?

Long John: the oblong yeast doughnut is often sold as an 'éclair' when filled, after the French pastry it resembles, and becomes a maple bar under maple glaze.

With what shipboard object did Hanson Gregory claim to have punched the first doughnut hole in 1847?

A tin pepper box: Gregory said he cut out the raw, doughy middle with the lid of the ship's pepper box; a rival tale has him spiking a doughnut on a spoke of the ship's wheel in a storm.

Randy's Donuts, crowned by a giant rooftop doughnut, is a landmark of which US city's metropolitan area?

Los Angeles: the shop itself stands in neighbouring Inglewood, and its giant doughnut is so striking that it has turned up in countless films, television shows and music videos.

Which style of doughnut needs no rising time because it is chemically leavened rather than raised with yeast?

Cake doughnut: baking powder or soda does the lifting, so the batter can be mixed, shaped and fried at once, giving a dense, crumbly ring made for dunking.

Which video-game hero nicknames small-town sheriff Tom Wachowski 'Donut Lord' in a 2020 film?

Sonic the Hedgehog: the nickname stuck so well that James Marsden's sheriff shared the title of a tie-in comic, The Adventures of Sonic & Donut Lord.

Under which brand name does Dunkin' sell its bite-sized doughnut holes?

Munchkins: selling the punched-out centres as a novelty worked so well that chains now drop them from a special nozzle instead; Tim Hortons calls its version Timbits.

Besides lemon rind and cinnamon, which cargo spice did Elizabeth Gregory reportedly put in her early doughnuts?

Nutmeg: Elizabeth Gregory is said to have used nutmeg and cinnamon from her son's spice cargo and to have put hazelnuts or walnuts in the middle, where the dough might not cook through.

Which Cambodian refugee built the California doughnut empire behind a 2020 documentary?

Ted Ngoy: after learning the trade as a trainee manager at a doughnut chain, he leased shops to fellow Cambodian refugees across California, then lost his fortune at the gambling tables of Las Vegas.

In Iron Man 2, who tells Tony Stark at Randy's Donuts that his new assistant is a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent?

Stark is sitting inside the shop's giant rooftop doughnut sign in full armour, eating from a box of Randy's, when Fury sits down opposite him.

Churros, sugared sticks of fried choux dough, come from Portuguese cuisine and that of which other country?

Spain: churros are piped through a star-shaped tip into hot oil and dusted with sugar, and migrants from Spain and Portugal carried them to Latin America and the Philippines.

What did Salvation Army volunteers in wartime France use as improvised rolling pins for soldiers' doughnuts?

Wine bottles: with no kitchen gear at the front in 1917, the women rolled the dough with an empty wine bottle and could fry only seven doughnuts at a time in a small pan.

Which British government agency works from a ring-shaped Cheltenham headquarters nicknamed 'The Doughnut'?

GCHQ: the circular building, occupied from 2003, replaced more than 50 older buildings on two sites, many of them huts in the Bletchley Park mould.

Which comedy film features Stan Mikita's Donuts, a spoof of the Tim Hortons chain?

Wayne's World: Tim Hortons is named after a Toronto hockey star, so the film swapped in Stan Mikita, a hero of its own characters' home team, who turns up in a cameo.

What did WWI soldiers call The Salvation Army women who served them donuts?

Doughnut Lassies: 'lassie' was already the word for a Salvation Army woman, and the soldiers came home with a taste for doughnuts that helped turn them into an American staple.

A splash of what is traditionally added to pączki dough so that less oil soaks in during frying?

Grain alcohol: a little rectified spirit in the dough evaporates in the fryer and keeps the oil from soaking deep into the pączki.

Which 1988 sci-fi musical comedy with Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum features the Randy's Donuts sign?

Earth Girls Are Easy: Julien Temple's musical crash-lands three furry aliens, played by Jeff Goldblum, Jim Carrey and Damon Wayans, in a manicurist's swimming pool, and the giant doughnut turns up among its locations.

National Donut Day began in 1938 as a Great Depression fundraiser for the Salvation Army in which Midwestern city?

Chicago: the city's Salvation Army launched the day to help the needy and to honour the women who had fried doughnuts for American soldiers in France two decades earlier.

Fánk, a yeast doughnut served with powdered sugar and lekvar, is a traditional sweet of which country?

Hungary: fánk is the Hungarian carnival doughnut, a yeast dough enriched with butter, egg yolk, milk and a splash of rum, fried and served with powdered sugar and apricot lekvar.

Laura Numeroff's 2011 follow-up to If You Give a Mouse a Cookie offers a donut to which animal?

A dog: If You Give a Dog a Donut kept the series' alliterative pairings going, after a moose was given a muffin and a cat a cupcake.

Pączki, filled doughnuts eaten in the run-up to Lent, come from which country's cuisine?

Poland: pączki were a way to use up the lard, sugar, eggs and fruit forbidden during the Lenten fast, and Poles still eat them on Fat Thursday, the last Thursday before it begins.

Which drink goes into the batter of the doughnuts sold at New England farm stands each autumn?

Apple cider: doughnuts were already an autumn food on Northeastern farms, because the season's butchering left plenty of fat for frying, and the freshly pressed cider went into the batter.

According to legend, a Berlin field baker in Frederick the Great's army shaped the first Berliner doughnuts like what?

Cannonballs: the story says he was unfit to serve as a gunner but was kept on as regimental baker, and with no oven in the field he fried his round yeast buns in pans of hot fat.

Which American author described 'dough-nuts, or oly koeks' in his 1809 History of New York?

Washington Irving: writing as the invented historian Diedrich Knickerbocker, he set 'an enormous dish of balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog's fat' on the tables of old New Amsterdam.

Which Godfather star played himself in a spoof Dunkin' Donuts commercial in the 2011 comedy Jack and Jill?

Al Pacino: Adam Sandler's ad man needs him to front a 'Dunkaccino' spot, and the film was received so badly that the role won Pacino a Golden Raspberry for worst supporting actor.

Hamtramck, where crowds queue at bakeries each year on Pączki Day, is an enclave of which US city?

Detroit: Hamtramck was a village of farmers until the Dodge brothers opened a car plant there, drawing tens of thousands of immigrant workers who brought the pre-Lenten doughnut with them.

When is the jam usually put into a modern jelly doughnut?

After frying, by injection: bakers once sealed the jam between two rounds of dough, but it is easier to fry the ball whole and fill it afterwards with a syringe or piping bag.

Topologists joke that they cannot tell a doughnut from which object, since each has exactly one hole?

A coffee mug: in topology two shapes count as the same if one can be deformed into the other without cutting or gluing, and the mug's handle supplies the single hole.

Finland's word for a doughnut, munkki, also means what?

Monk: the name is said to picture what happens in the fryer, where a spoonful of dough swells up like a well-fed monk in a brown habit.

What do mathematicians call the ring-shaped surface of a doughnut?

A torus: the surface is traced by sweeping a circle around an axis that misses it; strictly, a real doughnut, being filled in, is a solid torus.

Bakers pick soft, low-gluten flour for tender doughnuts because it contains less of which nutrient?

Protein: gluten forms from the proteins in wheat flour, so a high-protein flour makes a chewy, bready doughnut and a low-protein one a soft, crumbly one.

The cop-and-doughnut cliché dates from postwar years when doughnut shops were among the few businesses open at what time?

After midnight: officers on late shifts needed somewhere to eat and stay awake, and some shop owners plied them with coffee and doughnuts in return for the free policing.

What distinguishes the surface of an old-fashioned doughnut?

It is cracked, with tapered edges: the old-fashioned is fried at a lower temperature than other doughnuts, which leaves a rough, craggy crust whose cracks hold on to the glaze.

Basic doughnut glaze is made from confectioner's sugar mixed with what?

Water: the simplest glaze is confectioner's sugar thinned with a little water, sometimes with vanilla or milk, poured over warm doughnuts so it sets into a thin, translucent shell.

The word 'cruller' comes from a Dutch word meaning what?

In northern Germany the pastries are called Hirschhörner, or deer horns.

In which US state is Shrove Tuesday widely known as Fastnacht Day, after its pre-Lenten doughnuts?

Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Dutch cooks fried fasnachts to use up the fat and sugar in the house before the Lenten fast, and bakeries and supermarkets there still sell them for the day.

Which Greek fried dough balls are drizzled with honey syrup and dusted with cinnamon?

Loukoumades: bite-sized balls of yeast dough fried crisp, drenched in honey syrup and dusted with cinnamon or crushed walnuts, a street sweet sold across Greece; their Turkish cousin is lokma.

Which custard dessert inspired a signature filled doughnut at New York's Doughnut Plant?

Crème brûlée: founder Mark Isreal pipes the custard into each small round by hand, then sugars the top and scorches it with a blowtorch until it crackles.

The Boston cream pie, namesake of the doughnut, is most often credited to a chef at which Boston hotel?

Parker House: the hotel, also the home of the Parker House roll, claims the cake as its own, and a high-school civics class sponsored the 1996 bill that made it the official state dessert.

Portugal's custard-filled bolas de Berlim are traditionally sold by roaming vendors in which setting?

On beaches: the doughnut reached Portugal with Jewish refugees who fled Germany around the Second World War, and vendors now walk the sand calling 'Olha a bolinha!'

Under what name did the Quincy, Massachusetts shop that became Dunkin' Donuts trade in 1948?

Open Kettle: the founder opened it after noticing that coffee and doughnuts made up about 40 percent of his catering-truck sales, and renamed it Dunkin' Donuts two years later.

Why did Dunkin' drop its 'Dunkin' Donut', with its dunking grip, in 2003?

It was hand-cut and uneconomical: machines could not cut the grip, so the chain swapped it for a plain old-fashioned doughnut that they could.

Which alternative rock band wrote the jingles for Dunkin' Donuts' 'America Runs on Dunkin'' campaign in 2006?

They Might Be Giants: each short song sold a coffee break as the cure for an everyday snag, from bare legs sticking to a pleather car seat to an eight-year-old stuck up a tree.

Which made-up language did 2006 Dunkin' Donuts commercials invent to mock Starbucks-style coffee ordering?

Fritalian: customers baffled by a menu of fancy drink names wonder in song whether it is French or Italian, 'perhaps Fritalian', before the punchline that Dunkin' lattes are ordered in English.

Which private equity-backed company bought Dunkin' Brands for $11.3 billion in December 2020?

Inspire: the Roark Capital-backed owner of Arby's and Buffalo Wild Wings paid $106.50 a share, and once the deal closed Dunkin' Brands ceased to exist as a separate company.

When Dunkin' dropped 'Donuts' from its name in 2019, it described itself as a brand led by what?

Beverages: the company called the change a step towards becoming a 'beverage-led, on-the-go brand', and noted that customers had long been calling it plain Dunkin' anyway.

Which shoe company made a strawberry-frosted doughnut running shoe with Dunkin' for the 2018 Boston Marathon?

Saucony: the Massachusetts shoemaker and the Massachusetts doughnut chain marked their home-state race with a limited-edition Kinvara 9 that came packed in a doughnut box.

Which actor served customers at a Dunkin' drive-through window in the chain's 2023 Super Bowl commercial?

Ben Affleck: his then-wife Jennifer Lopez turns up in the first ad, and he came back at the next Super Bowl with Matt Damon and Tom Brady, a spot that put his own iced-coffee order on the DunKings menu.

Which colour joins orange in the Dunkin' logo?

Hot pink: the pink came first and orange only joined it later, with the name set in a rounded typeface called Frankfurter.

Which chain became Dunkin' Donuts' corporate sibling when Britain's Allied-Lyons bought Dunkin' in 1990?

Baskin-Robbins: Allied-Lyons already owned the 31-flavours chain, so the deal put the two under one roof, and they have shared an owner ever since.

Whose Dunkin' Donuts ad was pulled in 2008 after critics said her scarf resembled a keffiyeh?

Rachael Ray: Dunkin' insisted the scarf was a paisley silk one picked by a stylist, with 'absolutely no symbolism' intended, but pulled the online ad anyway, saying the row distracted from its iced coffee.

The Dunkin' founder's autobiography borrowed its title from which advertising catchphrase?

Time to Make the Donuts: the Dunkin' founder's 2001 memoir took its title from Fred the Baker's catchphrase; he got the idea for the chain from selling food at factories and construction sites.

Mister Donut was founded by Harry Winokur, the brother-in-law and former business partner of which Dunkin' Donuts founder?

William Rosenberg: after the partners split, Winokur built Mister Donut into a direct rival, until Dunkin's owner bought the chain in 1990 and converted most of its American shops.

Which pop star apologised in 2015 after a shop's security camera caught her licking doughnuts left out for sale?

Ariana Grande: her first apology dwelt on America's eating habits, so she filmed a second, saying she had been too busy preaching to say sorry properly for 'the whole donut fiasco'.

Mister Donut's chewy signature doughnut, the Pon de Ring, is made with which starch?

Tapioca: the ring of eight joined balls is said to borrow its name from pão de queijo, Brazil's chewy tapioca cheese bread, and its pull-apart style reached the US by way of Hawaii.

Vernon Rudolph is said to have picked Winston-Salem for Krispy Kreme in 1937 because it was home to which favourite brand?

Camel Cigarettes: the story goes that Rudolph chose the town because his favourite smokes were made there; he arrived with two friends and $25, and borrowed ingredients from a grocer for the first batch.

In Krispy Kreme lore, the secret recipe was bought from a French chef from which city?

New Orleans: in the tale a Frenchman named Joe LeBeau headed north in the 1930s and, short of money, sold his recipe to founder Vernon Rudolph's family; the company still keeps it locked away.

Under which ticker symbol did Krispy Kreme return to the stock market in 2021?

DNUT: the chain first listed in 2000, sank into losses and an accounting inquiry, was taken private in 2016 and came back to Nasdaq in July 2021 under a ticker that spells out its product.

Which diet craze did Krispy Kreme's CEO blame for its first loss as a public company in 2004?

Low-carb: in May 2004 CEO Scott Livengood blamed the Atkins-era low-carb craze for the chain's first loss as a public company; within a year the shares had lost about three-quarters of their value.

Krispy Kreme's first UK store opened in 2003 inside which London department store?

Harrods: Krispy Kreme's first British outlet opened inside Harrods in Knightsbridge in October 2003 and closed in June 2011 as the chain spread to high streets and Tesco counters.

Which cookie chain did Krispy Kreme acquire in 2018?

Insomnia Cookies began in 2003 with Penn student Seth Berkowitz baking cookies and delivering them to classmates late at night; Krispy Kreme bought it in 2018 and sold its majority stake in 2024.

Which fast-food giant began selling Krispy Kreme doughnuts in 2024 under a national deal that collapsed in 2025?

McDonald's had the doughnuts in about 2,400 US restaurants when the two firms called it off in July 2025, Krispy Kreme saying the rollout had created 'unsustainable operating costs'.

Krispy Kreme's 2010 grocery-store doughnut in the Carolinas was flavoured with which regional soft drink?

Cheerwine, the cherry soda made in Salisbury since 1917, flavoured the filling; the July 2010 grocery-store run proved so popular that the town's own Krispy Kreme shop began selling the doughnut too.

Krispy Kreme's $1,685 charity doughnut of 2014, covered in gold and edible diamonds, was filled with jelly made from what?

Dom Pérignon champagne jelly, under 24-karat gold, raised money for The Children's Trust.

In 2021, Krispy Kreme offered US customers a free Original Glazed doughnut every day for showing proof of what?

COVID-19 vaccination cards earned a daily doughnut for the rest of the year; some doctors objected, and the company called it an occasional indulgence.

Which singer inspired Krispy Kreme's first celebrity-themed doughnut collection in 2024?

Dolly Parton fronted the Dolly Southern Sweets collection of May 2024, with flavours such as Peachy Keen Cobbler and Banana Puddin' Pie, a pairing built on the Southern roots that singer and company share.

Krispy Kreme's early recipe is thought to trace to an Ohio River barge cook whose doughnuts contained what?

Potatoes went into the light, fluffy doughnuts of barge cook Joseph LeBoeuf, who in one account inspired the recipe that Vernon Rudolph's uncle Ishmael Armstrong sold from his general store.

Students at which university started the Krispy Kreme Challenge, a run with a dozen doughnuts eaten midway?

NC State students began the Krispy Kreme Challenge as a dare in December 2004: run 2.5 miles to the shop, eat a dozen doughnuts and run back inside an hour, with the proceeds going to a children's hospital.

Before his doughnut chain took off, Tim Horton's name went on Ontario drive-ins that sold which fast food?

Hamburgers: the drive-ins that carried Horton's name struggled, so his partner Jim Charade bet on doughnuts and franchising instead and set up the first doughnut franchise in 1964.

What was Ron Joyce's job before he took over the fledgling Tim Horton Donut Shop in 1965?

Police constable: Joyce was still on the force and running a Dairy Queen on the side when, unable to get a second outlet approved, he took on the struggling doughnut shop instead.

Tim Horton, co-founder of the doughnut chain, was still an NHL player at 44 when he died how?

In a car crash: Horton was driving home from a game in Toronto in February 1974 when his sports car left the highway near St. Catharines, leaving his partner Ron Joyce to build the chain without him.

Why did Tim Hortons remove the apostrophe from its name?

Quebec language sign laws: the possessive 's is English, so Tim Horton's signs risked falling foul of Quebec's French-language charter, and dropping the apostrophe gave the chain one sign nationwide.

Which American burger chain merged with Tim Hortons in 1995?

Wendy's: Dave Thomas's Wendy's International bought Tim Hortons in 1995 after the two chairmen met through a combined store in Montague, Prince Edward Island; Wendy's spun it off again in 2006.

Which fast-food chain's owners merged it with Tim Hortons in 2014 to form Restaurant Brands International?

Burger King's owner, 3G Capital, put both chains under the new parent and based it at Tim Hortons' head office in Oakville, Ontario, rather than in Miami, where the American chain has its home.

When Tim Hortons first ran Roll Up the Rim to Win in 1986, what was the biggest prize?

A snack box of Timbits topped the first contest, devised to lift coffee sales in the slow spring season; later years put cars and televisions under the rim.

Tim Hortons' Timbits take their name from founder Tim Horton and which English word?

Tidbit, a choice bit of food, gave Tim Hortons the pun for its bite-sized doughnuts, and the name now also goes on the Timbits teams, the young children's hockey and soccer sides that the chain sponsors.

Which rock 'n' roll star's only commercial was a 1954 jingle he sang for Southern Maid Donuts?

Elvis Presley sang the chain's jingle in November 1954 and never endorsed another product; the company still tells the story, though it admits nobody knows what he did for doughnut sales.

The 'doughnut hole' was the nickname of a gap in the prescription-drug cover of which US government health programme?

Medicare: under its drug plans, cover paused once a year's costs passed one limit and resumed only past a much higher one, leaving patients to fund the hole in the middle; the gap has since been closed.

Which diner chain, begun in the 1950s as a California doughnut shop, later merged with Winchell's Donut House?

Denny's opened in Lakewood as Danny's Donuts and changed a vowel after a rival chain, Coffee Dan's, objected; the merger then put doughnut man Verne Winchell in charge of the combined company.

Voodoo Doughnut, founded in Oregon in 2003, features which Haitian Vodou figure in its logo?

Baron Samedi, the top-hatted Vodou spirit of the dead, fronts the logo; the shop's pink boxes came after co-founder Kenneth Pogson saw doughnut shops using them in California.

Which Voodoo Doughnut creation was named an 'Official City Doughnut' by a 2008 council resolution?

Portland Crème carries two icing eyes to set it apart from a Boston cream, co-owner Kenneth Pogson told the council that voted it the official city doughnut on Christmas Eve 2008.

Until 2006, when was Voodoo Doughnut's original shop open?

Only at night: the original Old Town shop kept nocturnal hours until 2006; within five years the chain's shops were open round the clock and hosting legal weddings with a 'Doughnut of Love'.

Top Pot Doughnuts, named after a neon sign that lost a letter, began in which Pacific Northwest city?

Seattle: brothers Mark and Michael Klebeck opened on Capitol Hill in 2002, naming the shop after a 'Topspot' sign whose S fell off in transit; Starbucks later sold doughnuts made to their recipes.

The Randy's Donuts building began as a location of which drive-in chain?

Big Donut: Russell Wendell, a doughnut-machine salesman, opened the Inglewood shop as one of his Big Donut Drive-In locations; Robert Eskow later renamed it Randy's after his son.

The doughnut-shaped rings of radiation that circle Earth are named after which American physicist, whose satellite instruments recorded them in 1958?

James Van Allen put a Geiger counter aboard Explorer 1, the first American satellite, and its readings pointed to belts of trapped particles that satellites have had to be shielded against ever since.

In hairdressing, a soft ring called a 'doughnut' is used to shape which style?

A bun: the ring is slipped over a ponytail, the hair is spread out to hide it and then tied and pinned, leaving a neat round knot with the padding tucked inside.

Shipley Do-Nuts was founded in 1936 in which Texas city?

Houston: Lawrence Shipley Sr. created his recipe in 1936 and sold the doughnuts wholesale at five cents a dozen before opening a shop of his own, insisting they be served hot to bring customers back.

Which doughnut chain, founded in Tulsa in 1954 by Tommy and Lucille Day, echoes their surname in its name?

Daylight Donuts began with the Days making doughnut mix each morning and selling it from the trunk of their car; more than 200 shops were using it by the time they retired in 1977.

LaMar's Donuts opened its first shop in a converted gas station in which Missouri metro?

Kansas City: Ray Lamar, who began making doughnuts in 1933 at 17, opened the first LaMar's in a converted gas station on Linwood Boulevard, where queues formed before 6 a.m.

Duck Donuts takes its name from a town in which US state?

North Carolina: the chain is named for Duck, a town on North Carolina's Outer Banks, where founder Russ DiGilio opened the first shop after finding the beach town had no doughnut shop.

Philadelphia's Federal Donuts pairs doughnuts and coffee with which third 'comfort'?

Fried chicken: Michael Solomonov and four partners opened in 2011, inspired by Cafe Soho, a Philadelphia spot serving Korean fried chicken, and the chain now calls itself Federal Donuts & Chicken.

In the American idiom for a near-certain bet, what is wagered 'to doughnuts'?

Dollars: the lopsided odds are the point, because nobody stakes real money against something as nearly worthless as a doughnut unless they are sure of winning.

Doughnut Plant founder Mark Isreal first delivered his doughnuts to New York shops by what means?

Bicycle: Isreal fried doughnuts in his building's basement boiler room for five years and pedalled them to New York cafés by bicycle before opening his Lower East Side store in 2000.

Which fried pastry, named from an old word for 'bump', is Louisiana's official state doughnut?

Beignet comes from the Old French beigne, a bump or lump; French settlers brought the fritters with them in the 18th century, and the state legislature named them the official doughnut in 1986.

Berliners call their jam doughnut a Pfannkuchen, a word that in most of Germany means what?

Pancake is what Pfannkuchen means in most of Germany, so Berliners, who never call the doughnut a Berliner, have to ask for an Eierkuchen when they want a real one.

Zeppole are traditionally eaten to celebrate which Catholic feast day?

Saint Joseph's Day, March 19, doubles as Father's Day in Italy, and Neapolitan baker Pasquale Pintauro is credited with popularising the zeppole made for it in the early 19th century.

Venetian frittelle are traditionally sold only at which time of year?

Carnival: Venice's frìtole are fried only in the weeks of feasting before Lent, the classic kind unfilled, with pine nuts and raisins stirred into the dough.

Malassadas, Portuguese doughnuts taken abroad by sugar-plantation workers, became a favourite of which US state?

Hawaii got them from labourers recruited in Madeira and the Azores; the name is usually read as 'badly cooked', and Leonard's Bakery in Honolulu made them an island staple from 1952.

Brazil's ball-shaped filled doughnuts are called sonhos, a word meaning what?

Dreams: sonho is Portuguese for 'dream'; Portugal calls the same filled ball a bola de Berlim, while Brazil's sonhos come filled with cream or goiabada, a guava jam.

Peruvian picarones are doughnut-shaped fritters made from squash and what other ingredient?

Sweet potato: picarones blend squash and sweet potato into a yeasted batter, fried in rings and served with chancaca syrup; colonial cooks devised them as a cheaper stand-in for buñuelos.

In Latin America, buñuelos are seen as a symbol of what?

Good luck is what the fritters are said to bring; they are a Christmas fixture across Latin America, and in Mexico they come drenched in a syrup of piloncillo, raw cane sugar.

Tulumba, piped through a star nozzle before frying, takes its name from a Turkish word for which device?

Pump is what tulumba means in Turkish, a word borrowed from the Italian tromba, after the way the dough is forced out; Egypt and the Levant call the same sweet balah ash-Sham, 'Levantine dates'.

The earliest known recipe for which syrup-soaked fried sweet, zalabiya in Arabic, is in a 10th-century Baghdad cookbook?

Jalebi descends from the zalabiya of Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq's cookbook, latticed fritters dipped in honey, and the word reached Hindi and Urdu by way of Persian.

Gulab jamun is traditionally made mainly from which ingredient?

Khoya (reduced milk) is kneaded with a little flour, fried and soaked in rose-scented syrup, hence the name: gulab is rose water and jamun the black plum that the dark, round sweets recall.

The savoury Indian vada, sometimes called the Indian doughnut, is made from what rather than wheat flour?

Lentil or potato flours: the medu vada is a ring of ground urad-dal (black gram) batter, fried and eaten in South India with sambar and coconut chutney.

Sfenj, the Maghrebi doughnut, takes its name from an Arabic word meaning what?

Sponge: sfenj comes from the Arabic for sponge, after the light, airy crumb of the fried dough, which is eaten plain, sprinkled with sugar or dipped in something sweet.

Sata andagi, dough balls whose name means 'sugar' and 'deep-fried', are a speciality of which Japanese prefecture?

Okinawa: the name is Okinawan, saataa for sugar and andaagii for deep-fried; the dough of flour, sugar and eggs is rolled into balls, and emigrants from the islands carried the recipe overseas.

What does the Cantonese name for youtiao, yàuhjagwái, literally mean?

Ghosts fried in oil: yàuhjagwái, 油炸鬼, is 'oil-fried ghost', a folk jab at the traitor Qin Hui and his wife, whom the twinned dough sticks represent; they are eaten with congee or soy milk at breakfast.

Kuih keria, a ring doughnut rolled in sugar until it forms a crust, is a traditional snack of which country?

Malaysia: kuih is the Malay word for a bite-sized cake, and this one is made by boiling and mashing a tuber instead of mixing a flour dough, then frying the rings and rolling them hot in sugar.

The Japanese an-doughnut resembles a Berliner but is filled with what?

Red azuki bean paste, or anko, fills the an-doughnut just as it fills anpan buns; nobody knows who first fried one, but Mister Donut Japan put it on the menu in 1983.

The oval Cantonese breakfast pastry ngàuhleisōu is named for its resemblance to what?

An ox tongue: ngàuhleisōu, 牛脷酥, is 'ox-tongue pastry', a chewy slab of lightly sweetened fried dough; the same shape has also earned it the name horse-ear pastry.

Sel roti, a ring-shaped rice doughnut, is prepared during Tihar and Dashain in which country?

Nepal: sel roti is the festival bread of Dashain and Tihar, a ring of rice-flour batter with sugar, ghee and spices that is left to rest before it is poured into hot oil.

Puff-puff, a fried dough ball eaten across West Africa, takes that name from which country?

Nigeria's name stuck; in Ghana it is bofrot, in Togo botokoin and in the Congo mikate.

Mandazi, triangular fried breads often enriched with coconut milk, are an everyday snack in which part of Africa?

East Africa: mandazi are eaten from Kenya and Tanzania to Uganda, less sweet than a glazed doughnut and never iced; made with coconut milk they go by the name mahamri.

The South African vetkoek's name literally means what in Afrikaans?

Fat cake: vetkoek is literally 'fat cake' in Afrikaans; it is thought to go back to the Voortrekkers, who wanted a bread that would travel, and is often stuffed with curried mince.

A koeksister monument in the Afrikaner town of Orania honours the tradition of baking them to fund what?

Churches and schools: Orania's koeksister monument honours Afrikaner women who baked the syrup-soaked plaited pastries to raise money for churches and schools; the fried strips are plunged into ice-cold syrup.

Polish faworki, thin fried ribbons of dough eaten before Lent, are known in English as what?

Angel wings: faworki, also called chruściki, are strips of egg dough twisted through a slit, fried crisp and dusted with powdered sugar for Fat Thursday before Lent.

Krofi from the roadside village of Trojane, filled with apricot jam, are the best-known doughnuts of which country?

Slovenia: the restaurant at Trojane built its name on the jam doughnuts, once a seasonal treat and now sold all year, and it also fills them with blueberry or chocolate.

Gogoși, hole-less fried doughnuts filled with jam, chocolate or cheese, are a favourite sweet of which country?

Romania: the doughnuts change name as they cross the country, to pancove in Transylvania, pampuște in Bukovina and crofne in Banat, and are often dusted with icing sugar.

Finland's munkki doughnuts are traditionally eaten with sima mead on which holiday?

May Day: Vappu is one of Finland's biggest holidays, and its picnics run on sugared munkki, lacy tippaleipä funnel cakes and sima, a lightly fermented lemon drink once tied to the labour movement.

In Northern Ireland, ring doughnuts are known by what name?

Gravy rings: in Northern Ireland a ring doughnut is a gravy ring, 'gravy' being an old term for the hot cooking fat it is fried in.

What are glazed, twisted rope-shaped doughnuts called in the United Kingdom?

Yum-yums: the UK's twisted, glazed strips of croissant-style dough are sold as yum-yums in supermarkets and bakeries; in parts of Scotland ring doughnuts are called doughrings.

Norway's traditional bakery doughnut is called what?

Smultring means 'lard ring': the small cake doughnuts are fried in lard and sold from stalls at Christmas time.

Ukrainian pampushky differ from most doughnuts because traditionally they are what?

Baked, not fried: pampushky are small yeast buns that are traditionally baked rather than fried, the savoury ones brushed with garlic oil for borscht; William Pokhlyobkin traced the technique to German colonists in Ukraine.

Which kind of object looks like a glowing orange doughnut in the first direct image of one, released in 2019?

A black hole: the ring is hot gas swirling around the one at the heart of the galaxy M87, and capturing it took radio observatories on several continents working together as a single Earth-sized telescope.

Melbourne's hot jam doughnuts are a tradition at which venue?

Queen Victoria Market: the American Doughnut Kitchen has traded there since the 1950s, and its doughnuts arrive piping hot because the jam is injected before the dough goes into the fryer.

In South Australia, a jam doughnut may be called a Berliner or by what other name?

Kitchener: South Australians renamed the Berliner the Kitchener bun in the anti-German mood of the First World War, after the British field marshal; it is split and filled with jam and cream.

Chile's Berlin doughnut is often filled with manjar, the local version of what?

Dulce de leche: manjar is Chile's caramelised-milk spread, the local dulce de leche, piped into the berlín, a doughnut made popular by Chile's large German community.

BeaverTails, the fried-dough pastry chain, opened its first permanent store in 1980 in which city?

Ottawa: Grant and Pam Hooker first sold the pastries at the Killaloe fair in 1978, working from his grandmother's recipe, and opened the first permanent stand in the ByWard Market two years later.

Iran's syrup-soaked zoolbia is traditionally paired with which sweet, named after okra for its shape?

Bamiyeh is the Persian word for okra, yet the sweet contains none: its dough is piped through a star-shaped tip into short fingers that look like the vegetable.

Tunisia's traditional doughnut-like pastries are known by what name?

Yo-yos are fried and dipped in honey syrup, and Tunisian Jewish families serve them at Purim, when their sweetness stands for the hope of a sweet future.

In which disaster film does the giant rooftop doughnut of Randy's Donuts break loose and bounce down the street?

2012 has the rooftop doughnut come unhinged and bounce toward John Cusack's limousine, all of it digital trickery: the real sign in Inglewood has never left its roof.

Which chain, founded in 1981, grew into Australia's largest doughnut retailer?

Donut King has franchised since 1991 and is known for its hot cinnamon donuts, which bounce along a mini conveyor belt into cinnamon sugar while customers watch through the glass.

Which convenience chain turned a dozen shops into Kwik-E-Marts for a 2007 animated film promoted with a record giant doughnut?

7-Eleven paid for the whole makeover itself and filled the shelves with products that until then existed only in the cartoon, such as Buzz Cola and KrustyO's cereal.

In the Tour de Donut bike race, what does each doughnut eaten earn a rider?

Five minutes off their time, so the fastest cyclist does not always win: the race, started in 1989 as a spoof of the Tour de France, can be decided at its two doughnut stops.

In driving slang, what is a car doing when it 'does doughnuts'?

Spinning in tight circles: the driver holds the car in a skid so that one end swings round the other, leaving a ring of tyre marks, and dictionaries now list the stunt as a sense of 'doughnut' in its own right.

In Robert McCloskey's Homer Price, whose lunchroom has the runaway doughnut machine?

Uncle Ulysses leaves Homer in charge of the lunchroom's new doughnut maker, which will not stop; it turns out more than enough for the whole town, and a boy wins $100 for finding a lost bracelet inside one.

Which Oxford economist created the doughnut-shaped model of 'Doughnut Economics'?

Kate Raworth: the Oxford economist's 2017 book Doughnut Economics drew the model as a ring whose hole marks people short of essentials and whose outer crust marks planetary boundaries.

During the 2013 lockdown after the Boston Marathon bombing, some Dunkin' Donuts shops stayed open to serve whom?

Police and first responders: at the direction of the authorities, a handful of Dunkin' shops stayed open during the April 19, 2013 lockdown to serve police and first responders while most of the city's businesses stayed shut.

Sufganiyot are fried at Hanukkah in memory of a Temple lamp said to have burned for how long?

Eight days is how long a single day's supply of pure olive oil is said to have lasted, which is why the festival runs for eight nights and why its foods are fried.

Oliebollen, raisin-studded balls of fried dough, are traditionally eaten on which occasion?

New Year's Eve: mobile stalls sell oliebollen in the street all winter, but the last night of the year is their moment, eaten under a thick dusting of powdered sugar.

Belgium's smoutebollen and croustillons are typical snacks at what kind of event?

Carnivals and fairs: Flanders calls them smoutebollen, 'lard balls', and Wallonia croustillons, roughly 'crispies'; they are fried to order, usually without fruit, and dusted with powdered sugar.

Austria's Bauernkrapfen are distinctive for what shape?

A thick ring, thin in the middle: both kinds are yeast dough, but where the ordinary Krapfen is a solid ball filled with apricot jam, the farmhouse version keeps a puffy rim around a wafer-thin centre.

Tim Hortons' first doughnut shop opened in 1964 near the steel plants of which Ontario city?

Hamilton: the shop in the industrial east end was an instant hit with shift workers from the steel plants, who came as much for the coffee as for the doughnuts, and it still trades today.

How much did Ron Joyce pay the Horton family for their shares after Tim Horton's 1974 death?

$1 million and a Cadillac bought out Tim Horton's widow Lori in 1975; a dozen years on she sued to undo the sale, saying she had been unfit to agree to it, and lost.

In which Afghan city did Tim Hortons open an outlet for Canadian troops on July 1, 2006?

Kandahar: the Tim Hortons at Kandahar Airfield opened on Canada Day 2006 at the request of Chief of the Defence Staff Rick Hillier and served troops until 2011.

Tim Hortons' first US stores opened in 1981 in which state, where they proved unsuccessful?

Florida: shops in Deerfield Beach and Pompano Beach opened in 1981 and soon closed; the chain tried again in 1984 just over the border in Tonawanda, New York, and grew from there.

When Tim Hortons opened in New York City in 2009, it echoed Horton's playing spell with which NHL team?

New York Rangers: Horton was traded to them in 1970, and one of the dozen Dunkin' Donuts shops that reopened as Tim Hortons in 2009 stood at Madison Square Garden, their home ice.

Which Canadian doughnut variety was popularised by the Tim Hortons chain?

The dutchie: the square, raisin-studded, glazed yeast doughnut was on the first Tim Hortons menu in 1964, though its bite-sized Timbit version was dropped in 2014 for lack of buyers.

Tim Hortons opened its first shop in China in 2019 in which city?

Shanghai: the first Chinese shop opened in the Huangpu District in February 2019, months after the chain announced plans for 1,500, and by the end of 2024 the count had passed 1,000.

Krispy Kreme founder Vernon Rudolph cut a hole in the wall of his first bakery to do what?

Sell to people outside: Rudolph baked for grocery stores, but by the company's account the smell of hot doughnuts kept drawing people to his Winston-Salem bakery, so he opened the wall and sold to them directly.

Which food conglomerate made Krispy Kreme a wholly owned subsidiary in 1976?

Beatrice Foods, a conglomerate whose brands ran from Tropicana to Samsonite, held Krispy Kreme from 1976 until a group of franchisees bought the company back in 1982.

Krispy Kreme's first store outside North America opened in Penrith, a suburb of which city?

Sydney: the Penrith store opened in June 2003 after 300,000 doughnuts were given away as publicity; the Australian arm grew past 40 stores, then went into administration in 2010.

What packaging innovation did the Entenmann family introduce in 1959?

The see-through cake box let shoppers judge the goods at a glance once the family had swapped home delivery for supermarket shelves; in its delivery days the bakery counted Frank Sinatra as a weekly customer.

Which Mexican baking giant took over Entenmann's when it bought George Weston's US bakeries?

Grupo Bimbo is the last in a long line of owners: the drug maker Warner-Lambert bought the family bakery in 1978, and General Foods, Kraft, Bestfoods and Unilever all followed.