Donut Hole History

Have you ever wondered why donuts have holes? Here's a donut hole history that will answer that question for you:

Here's the story as told by essortment.com:

In every country that makes bread , there arises the question of what to do with the leftover scraps of dough. In England, they dropped the bits into soup or water, and made dumplings. But in Holland and in Germany, cooks dropped the extra into boiling oil, and made fry-cakes, or olie-koecken. The Dutch fancied up their leftovers a bit more by shaping them into decorative knots (dough knots), and rolling in sugar afterwards...

So it looks like the hole just came from tying the dough into a knot! But not so fast, bcause residents of Rockport, Maine claim it was their town that invented doughnuts, as he got tired of waiting for the center part to finish cooking. (I wish I could do the same by cutting the middle out of a pot of rice!) For more on the controversial history of donut holes see the article below:

Donut Hole History
essortment.com

In any doughnut case there are yeast style and cake style. The yeast type is closer to its origins as leftover bread. This version is deceptively light, with a good deal of air between the layers. The cake style on the other hand, with a heavy, dense body, was a later development-essentially fried cake dough. ...

Donut Hole History