50 free Hard Donuts trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This is the hard donuts trivia quiz. If you already know National Donut Day honours the Salvation Army, that a Cronut is a croissant crossed with a doughnut and that Homer Simpson would do anything for one, these 50 questions go deeper: the New Orleans chef whose recipe Krispy Kreme is built on, the name Dunkin' traded under for its first two years, the price Ron Joyce paid for the Horton family's stake, the 1485 Nuremberg cookbook with the first jam doughnut, and the Song dynasty traitor a Chinese doughnut is meant to insult. The set covers the founders and takeovers behind the big chains, the etymology of doughnut and donut, filled and ring doughnuts from Poland to Portugal to Hawaii, the shops that made doughnuts fashionable again, and the numbers behind IPOs and mergers. It is written for people who know a cruller from a fry cake. Every answer was checked against a primary or encyclopedic source before publishing and each question carries its citation. For a warm-up, start with our main donuts trivia quiz and come back for this one.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Krispy Kreme founder Vernon Rudolph bought his yeast-raised recipe from a chef in which city?
New Orleans
Rudolph rented a building in what is now Old Salem, Winston-Salem, in 1937 and began selling to grocery stores. The recipe's roots may trace to an Ohio River barge cook.
Q 02Before Winston-Salem, the Rudolphs sold Krispy Kreme doughnuts from a rented store on Gallatin Road in which city?
Nashville, Tennessee
Vernon and his uncle Ishmael Armstrong moved there in 1934 from a struggling general store in Paducah, Kentucky.
Q 03Which Chicago conglomerate owned Krispy Kreme from 1976 until franchisees bought it back in 1982?
Beatrice Foods
The headquarters never left Winston-Salem. The company went public on the Nasdaq in April 2000 under the ticker KREM.
Q 04At what price per share did Krispy Kreme go public in April 2000?
$21
It moved to the New York Stock Exchange as KKD in 2001 and peaked at $50 in August 2003, up 135 percent, before accounting scandals hit.
Q 05Under what name did Bill Rosenberg open his Quincy, Massachusetts shop in 1948, before renaming it Dunkin' Donuts?
Open Kettle
The idea came from selling food at factories and building sites, where coffee and doughnuts were the two top sellers. The Dunkie mascot arrived in 1954.
Q 06Which rival chain, founded by Bill Rosenberg's former partner Harry Winokur, did Dunkin' Donuts absorb in 1990?
Mister Donut
The conversion of those shops drove growth across North America the same year Baskin-Robbins' parent company bought the chain.
Q 07How much did Inspire Brands pay for Dunkin' Brands in the deal completed in December 2020?
$11.3 billion
The price included the company's debt. Dunkin' had dropped 'Donuts' from its name in January 2019 to become a 'beverage-led company'.
Q 08Tim Horton's first restaurant sold hamburgers rather than doughnuts. In which Ontario town was it?
North Bay
The first doughnut store opened on May 17, 1964, in Hamilton as Tim Horton Donuts, later losing its possessive apostrophe.
Q 09After Tim Horton died in 1974, how much did Ron Joyce pay the family for their share of the 40-store chain?
$1 million
Joyce, a former Hamilton police constable, then expanded aggressively. A US$11.4 billion merger with Burger King followed in 2014.
Q 10Which co-founder of Tim Hortons left in 1966 and returned only briefly in 1970 and the mid-1990s?
Jim Charade
Charade had partnered with the Maple Leafs defenceman on the original hamburger venture. Wendy's later merged with the chain before a 2014 fast-food takeover.
Q 11Timbits, introduced in April 1976, differ from American doughnut holes in what way?
They are baked rather than fried
In 2021 the chain sold limited-edition celebrity Timbits with a Canadian pop star. The Dutchie is another doughnut the chain popularised.
Q 12Per John T. Edge, why did the Display Doughnut Machine Corporation coin the spelling 'donut' in the 1920s?
To make the word easier for foreign buyers to pronounce
The first printed use of the shorter spelling actually dates to a 1900 novel by George W. Peck.
Q 13Which 1809 satire by Washington Irving contains one of the earliest mentions of the 'dough-nut'?
Q 21The Portuguese word malassada literally means what, a nod to the doughnut's irregular shape?
Badly roasted
Labourers from Madeira and the Azores brought them to Hawaii's plantations in the 1870s, which is why they are called Hawaiian doughnuts.
Q 22One theory holds that Dutch oliebollen were introduced in the 15th century by which immigrant group?
Portuguese Sephardi Jews
Others credit Germanic tribes eating them at Yule. Today they are a Silvester tradition, often with raisins or apple inside.
Q 23Youtiao's Cantonese name means 'oil-fried devil'. Its two joined dough strips represent which figure and his wife?
A History of New York
Dutch settlers had brought the olykoek, or oil cake, to New Amsterdam in the early 18th century, though the ring shape came later.
Q 14Which 1900 book contains the first known printed use of the spelling 'donut'?
Peck's Bad Boy and his Pa
The New York Times used both spellings interchangeably in its 'National Donut Week' coverage of the 1939 World's Fair.
Q 15Per Gil Marks, the first published jam-filled doughnut recipe appeared in a 1485 cookbook from which city?
Nuremberg
The Gefüllte Krapfen sandwiched jam between two rounds of yeast dough fried in lard. In 19th-century Germany it became the Berliner or Bismarck.
Q 16Why is the JFK 'Ich bin ein Berliner' jam-doughnut story an urban myth?
Berliners call that pastry a Pfannkuchen, and the tale appeared decades later
The crowd's laughter came seconds later, when Kennedy joked about thanking his interpreter for translating his German.
Q 17A common German prank, especially on April Fools' Day, secretly fills some Berliners with what?
Mustard
The doughnuts are traditionally eaten at Silvester and carnival. Before sugar became affordable they were stuffed with cheese, meat or mushrooms.
Q 18Which 12th-century rabbi's father wrote that eating fried sofganim on Hanukkah was an ancient custom?
Maimonides
Those early fritters were probably syrup-soaked cakes. A folk etymology claims sufganiyah means 'the end of the Garden of the Lord', which no commentator supports.
Q 19Zeppole are traditionally eaten on which Catholic feast day?
Saint Joseph's Day
The modern zeppola dates from the 18th century and is typical of Rome, Naples and Lecce; Sardinia's tzipulas are cousins.
Q 20Greek loukoumades descend from enkrides, honey-soaked fried dough mentioned by which ancient writers?
Aristophanes and Aeschylus
Athenaeus described them as cakes boiled in oil and seasoned in honey. They stayed popular in Byzantine Lent because they contain no dairy or meat.
Qin Hui, the official who framed general Yue Fei
The dough was originally shaped like two humans. In Taiwan the snack is iû-chiā-kóe, 'oil-fried pastry'.
Q 24In which year was Boston cream pie declared the official dessert of Massachusetts?
1996
The pie is usually credited to chef Augustine François Anezin at the Parker House Hotel for its 1856 opening; cakes and pies were once baked in the same tins.
Q 25The word cruller comes from an early 19th-century Dutch word meaning what?
To curl
Northern Germans call them Hirschhörner, deer horns. Pennsylvania Dutch settlers introduced them to America, and the Milwaukee style is a glazed loaf.
Q 26In Scandinavia, crullers known as klejner or klenäter are traditionally made when, as a family project?
New Year's Eve
Children do the fiddly shaping and adults handle the hot fat. Both names come from Low German.
Q 27Which company may have sold the first commercial cider version in 1951?
The Doughnut Corporation of America
The New York Times described the 'sweet cider doughnut' as a spicy round cake. Cider doughnuts remain a New England autumn ritual.
Q 28The Randy's Donuts building in Inglewood began life in 1952 as a branch of which drive-in chain?
Big Donut
Founder Russell Wendell sold it in 1976 to Robert Eskow, who named it after his son; the Weintraub brothers bought it in 1978 and kept the name.
Q 29Big Donut founder Russell Wendell later focused on which fast-food chain, sold to a rival in 1984?
Pup 'N' Taco
Taco Bell bought it. The giant rooftop doughnut near LAX has featured in films from Earth Girls Are Easy to Iron Man 2.
Q 30Which Voodoo Doughnut creation was declared its Oregon hometown's 'Official City Doughnut' in December 2008?
The Portland Crème
Founders Kenneth 'Cat Daddy' Pogson and Tres Shannon opened in Old Town in May 2003; by 2011 the shops hosted legal weddings and sold about 20 tons of doughnuts a week.