Donuts
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
196 free Donuts trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
50 free donut trivia questions with answers. Think you're a donut expert? Challenge yourself with our comprehensive 196-question donut trivia quiz covering everything from history and flavors to iconic brands and world records. Whether you're a casual donut lover or a true connoisseur, these questions will test your knowledge and teach you surprising facts about America's favorite treat.
30 of 196 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01On which day is National Donut Day, when US doughnut shops give away freebies, observed each year?
First Friday of June
The First Friday of June; the lesser-known National Jelly-Filled Donut Day falls on June 8.
Q 02Which two Salvation Army volunteers pioneered making donuts for soldiers in World War I?
Helen Purviance and Margaret Sheldon
Helen Purviance and Margaret Sheldon, Salvation Army ensigns serving in France, fried the first doughnuts for the troops in 1917, seven at a time in a small frying pan, in a hut near the front.
Q 03What is the most common cooking method for traditional donuts?
Deep-frying
Yeast-raised doughnuts absorb about 25% of their weight in oil during the roughly 150 seconds they spend in the fryer.
Q 04In which US state was the world's largest jelly-filled donut, over 1.6 metric tons, made in 1993?
New York
The record for the largest filled donut was set in Utica, New York, in 1993, with a jelly-filled donut weighing 1.695 metric tons (3,739 lbs).
Q 05Which chain, founded in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1948, is usually credited with popularising the spelling 'donut'?
Dunkin'
Dunkin': the Quincy, Massachusetts shop took the name Dunkin' Donuts in 1950, and the chain's growth carried the short spelling into everyday American use.
Q 06Which 1988 Interplay adventure game has a Donut World that only policemen may enter?
Neuromancer
Neuromancer, Interplay's 1988 adaptation of William Gibson's novel, puts a cops-only Donut World in Chiba City and throws the player out of it, a wink at the police-and-doughnut cliché.
Q 07Which belief about the Salvation Army's World War I donuts is a historical misconception?
That the nickname 'doughboy' came from the pastries
'Doughboy' for a US infantryman was already in use during the Mexican–American War of 1846–47, decades before anyone fried a donut in a trench helmet.
Q 08WWI Salvation Army volunteers cut soldiers' doughnuts with baking-powder cans and which other improvised tool?
A coffee percolator tube
A coffee percolator tube: the Salvation Army volunteers stamped the outer ring with a baking-powder can and punched the hole with the percolator's tube while improvising in France in 1917.
Q 09Cambodia's nom kong doughnut is named for its shape; kong literally means what?
Wheel
Wheel: nom kong, Khmer for 'wheel cake', is a ring of jasmine-rice-flour dough that is deep-fried, drizzled with palm-sugar toffee and sprinkled with sesame seeds.
Q 10Roughly what share of a yeast-raised doughnut's weight is oil absorbed during frying?
25%
25%: a yeast-raised doughnut fries longer than a cake doughnut and soaks up roughly a quarter of its weight in oil; cake doughnuts absorb a little less but carry extra fat in the batter.
Q 11In what year did The Salvation Army first establish National Donut Day?
1938
1938: The Salvation Army launched National Donut Day during the Great Depression as a fundraiser honouring the women who had served doughnuts to soldiers in World War I.
Q 12Charlie Chaplin's 1914 bakery-set silent short Dough and Dynamite was made by which studio?
Keystone Studios
Keystone Studios: Dough and Dynamite was one of the dozens of shorts Chaplin made at Mack Sennett's Keystone in 1914, his first year in film; he plays a waiter drafted into the bakery during a strike.
Q 13In the United States, the shortened spelling 'donut' remained rare until which decade?
1950s
1950s: Dunkin' Donuts adopted the short spelling in 1950 and grew into a national chain, turning 'donut' into everyday shorthand; earlier uses such as a 1929 Los Angeles Times article were scattered.
Q 21The Dutch olykoek, an ancestor of the doughnut, has a name that literally means what?
Oil cake
Oil cake: olykoek, from Dutch olie (oil) and koek (cake), was a ball of sweetened dough fried in hog fat that Dutch settlers brought to New Amsterdam in the 17th century.
Q 22According to culinary historian Linda Civitello, why was the hole in the middle of the doughnut invented?
It let the doughnuts cook faster
It let the doughnuts cook faster: Civitello argues the ring shape cured the soggy centre by letting heat reach the dough from both sides; food writer Michael Krondl suspects the ring was borrowed from the jumble cookie.
Q 23Which cartoon character's love of doughnuts is a running joke and the focus of several episodes?
Q 14A recipe for globi, fried dough balls with cheese, honey and poppy seeds, appears in De agri cultura by whom?
Cato the Elder
Cato the Elder: his De agri cultura, written around 160 BC, gives a recipe for globi, balls of cheese and spelt dough fried in fat and served with honey and poppy seeds.
Q 15Which country is famous for 'oliebollen', a fried dough precursor to the modern donut?
Netherlands
Netherlands: oliebollen are Dutch fried dough balls, often studded with raisins and dusted with powdered sugar; Dutch settlers carried the related olykoek to New Amsterdam.
Q 16Which country eats the most doughnuts per person and has the most doughnut shops per capita?
Canada
Canada: its coffee-and-doughnut habit grew up around chains such as Tim Hortons, founded in 1964, and Canadians buy more doughnuts per person, with more shops per capita, than any other nation.
Q 17Which croissant-donut hybrid pastry was created by chef Dominique Ansel?
Cronut
Dominique Ansel introduced the Cronut at his bakery on May 10, 2013, after two months of testing; it is made from layered viennoiserie dough fried in grapeseed oil and filled with cream.
Q 18In which film did Clark Gable teach Claudette Colbert to dunk a doughnut, popularising the habit in the 1930s?
It Happened One Night
It Happened One Night: in Frank Capra's 1934 comedy, Clark Gable's reporter lectures Claudette Colbert's heiress on the proper way to dunk a doughnut, a scene credited with spreading the habit.
Q 19Which twisted doughnut is, in its 'French' form, extruded from choux pastry?
Cruller
Cruller: the French cruller is piped from choux pastry into a ridged ring that fries up light and airy; in northern Germany the twisted kind is called Hirschhörner, or deer horns.
Q 20Sufganiyot got their modern name after Polish Jewish immigrants brought the ponchik to which country?
Israel
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.
Homer Simpson
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.
Q 24How many powdered doughnuts did Kevin 'L.A. Beast' Strahle eat in three minutes for a 2017 Guinness record?
9
9: Strahle downed nine powdered doughnuts in three minutes at the Guinness World Records office in May 2017 on a Facebook Live broadcast; the sugar dust dries the mouth, which makes them slow to swallow.
Q 25Which type of donut often features a distinctive rectangular shape, sometimes topped with maple frosting?
Long John
Long John: the oblong yeast doughnut, often iced with maple or chocolate and sometimes filled with custard, is a staple of Midwestern doughnut cases.
Q 26With what shipboard object did Hanson Gregory claim to have punched the first doughnut hole in 1847?
A tin pepper box
A tin pepper box: Gregory, a 16-year-old aboard a lime-trading ship in 1847, said he punched the hole with the ship's tin pepper box to cure the raw, greasy centre of the fried cakes.
Q 27The iconic Randy's Donuts sign, a giant donut on a rooftop, is a famous landmark in which US city?
Los Angeles
Randy's Donuts, famous for its distinctive giant donut sign on the rooftop, is a well-known landmark in Inglewood, California, near Los Angeles.
Q 28Which doughnut style fries for only about 90 seconds, hotter than its yeast-raised counterpart?
Batter-based
Batter-based: cake doughnuts, leavened with baking powder rather than yeast, are denser and fry hotter and faster than yeast-raised rings, which spend noticeably longer in the oil.
Q 29In Sonic the Hedgehog (2020), what is the name of the sheriff Sonic nicknames 'Donut Lord'?
Tom Wachowski
Tom Wachowski even got a tie-in comic, Sonic the Hedgehog: The Adventures of Sonic & Donut Lord.
Q 30What are the small fried dough balls removed from the centre of ring donuts commonly called?
Donut holes
Donut holes: the centres punched out of ring doughnuts are fried as bite-sized balls and sold by the dozen; Dunkin' and Tim Hortons each gave them their own brand names.