— Amelia Simmons, American Cookery,
1796Doughnuts and Fritters Doughnuts and
fritters are essentially pieces of bread or
pastry dough that are fried in oil rather than
baked. Doughnuts have a moist interior and
little or no crust, while fritters are usually
fried until crisp.
The word doughnut was coined in the
United States in the 19th century to name
what the Dutch called olykoeks, portions of
fried sweetened dough. Their great popularity
flowered in the 1920s, when machinery
simplified the handling of the soft, sticky
doughs, which are rich in sugar, fat, and
sometimes eggs. There are two main styles:
yeasted doughnuts are light and fluffy, while
cake doughnuts, leavened with baking powder,
are denser. Light, yeasted doughnuts ride on
the oil surface and must be turned, which
leaves a white band around their