95 Fun Facts About Donuts Trivia for Kids

Which settlers brought 'olykoeks', or oil cakes, to New York and helped start America's love of donuts?

The Dutch. Their early oil cakes were solid balls, and cooks often tucked fruit or nuts into the centre, the part slowest to cook through.

Which famous author wrote about 'dough-nuts' as balls of sweet dough fried in fat, way back in 1809?

Washington Irving. In his comic history of the city, dough-nuts were small balls of sweetened dough fried in hog's fat, closer to today's donut holes than to rings.

Hanson Gregory claimed he invented the ring-shaped donut in 1847 while working where?

On a ship. Gregory said he was 16 and tired of fried cakes that stayed raw in the middle, so he cut the centre out to help them cook all the way through.

Cake donuts skip yeast and puff up in the fryer thanks to which ingredient?

Baking powder. It makes gas bubbles as soon as the batter gets wet and hot, so cake donuts can be fried right away instead of waiting for yeast dough to rise.

Before it became Dunkin' Donuts in 1950, the shop had what name?

Open Kettle. Bill Rosenberg renamed it two years after opening, and the chain grew so big that it helped make the short spelling 'donut' popular.

Krispy Kreme was founded in 1937 in Winston-Salem in which state?

North Carolina. The secret recipe came from a New Orleans chef, and Vernon Rudolph and two partners delivered their first batches of donuts in a 1936 Pontiac.

Krispy Kreme's famous glowing red sign lights up to tell passers-by what?

Hot donuts are coming off the line. The sign reads 'Hot Now', and newer shops have tunnel ovens so they can keep it lit, and the donuts warm, all day long.

Dunkin' was founded in 1950 in Quincy, a suburb of which big city?

Boston. Bill Rosenberg had been selling meals to factory workers and noticed that coffee and donuts were his best sellers, so he opened a shop built around those two.

Dunkin' sells its donut holes under what name?

Munchkins. They began as a thrifty way to use up the little balls of dough cut from the centre of ring donuts, and became a menu item of their own.

Which ice cream chain shares a parent company with Dunkin'?

Baskin-Robbins. The pairing began in 1990, when the ice cream chain's owner bought Dunkin' Donuts, and many shops now sell both brands under one roof.

Tim Hortons is named after its co-founder, a star player in which sport?

Ice hockey. Tim Horton won four Stanley Cups with the Toronto Maple Leafs, and like many players of his day he wanted a second career, so he opened a donut shop in 1964.

What does Tim Hortons call its donut holes?

Timbits. Roll Up the Rim has since given away hundreds of cars, but when the contest began in 1986 the biggest prize on offer was a snack box of them.

National Doughnut Day began in Chicago in 1938 as a fundraiser during which hard time?

The Great Depression. The Salvation Army launched the day to raise money for people in need and to honor the volunteers who had fried donuts for American soldiers in World War I.

In which country did the Salvation Army's 'Doughnut Lassies' fry donuts for WWI soldiers?

France. Freshly baked goods were hard to provide from huts near the front lines, so two Salvation Army volunteers fried donuts instead, and they were an instant hit with the troops.

In The Simpsons, Homer works as a safety inspector at what kind of place?

A nuclear power plant. The joke is that the donut-loving Homer is completely unqualified for the job and often neglects his duties or falls asleep at his post.

What color are the sprinkle donuts that Homer Simpson loves?

Pink. Twelve real 7-Eleven stores were once dressed up as the show's Kwik-E-Mart and sold pink sprinkle donuts alongside cans of Buzz Cola.

American soldiers in World War I, who ate donuts by the million, went by which nickname?

Doughboys. The name has nothing to do with donuts: it was already in use decades before the war, and nobody is sure where it came from.

Sprinkles are called 'jimmies' in which part of the United States?

New England. Nobody knows for sure where the word comes from, though one American candy company claims it invented the sprinkles and named them after a worker.

A box of 13 donuts instead of the usual 12 goes by which old name?

A baker's dozen. Medieval English bakers could be punished for selling underweight bread, so one old story says they threw in an extra loaf to be safe.

A German Berliner is a jam donut that is missing what?

A hole in the middle. The solid centre is what leaves room for the jam, and a recipe for it already appears in one of the first cookbooks printed on a Gutenberg press.

Which US president gave a famous speech in West Berlin in 1963 that shares its name with a jam donut?

John F. Kennedy. His line 'Ich bin ein Berliner' later inspired a popular legend that he had called himself a jam donut, but his audience understood him perfectly.

Sufganiyot, round jam-filled donuts, are eaten during which Jewish festival?

Hanukkah. Foods fried in oil recall the miracle of the Temple oil, and the filled donut itself came to Israel with Polish Jewish immigrants.

Polish paczki are traditionally eaten on 'Fat Thursday', the last Thursday before what?

Lent. The idea was to use up all the lard, sugar, eggs and fruit in the house before the weeks of fasting began.

Malasadas, Portuguese fried donuts, are nicknamed after which US state where they're popular?

Hawaii. Portuguese workers who came to labor on the islands' sugar plantations brought the recipe, and a Honolulu bakery turned it into a local craze in the 1950s.

Oliebollen, sugar-dusted dough balls sold at winter street stalls, are traditionally eaten on which night?

New Year's Eve. For 25 years a national newspaper sent tasters out at the end of each year to rank the stalls and name the best one in the country.

Loukoumades, the fried dough balls of Greece and Turkey, are usually soaked in what?

Honey or syrup. In Turkey they are traditionally cooked in huge batches and handed out free to neighbours and passers-by to remember a loved one.

Italian zeppole are traditionally eaten on March 19, the feast day of which figure?

Saint Joseph. Italy celebrates his feast day as Father's Day too, so the pastries are sold on the streets and handed over as gifts.

Churros, the ridged fried dough sticks from Spain and Portugal, are often dipped in what?

Hot chocolate. In Spain they are dunked stick by stick into a cup of it, and the ridges come from piping the dough through a star-shaped tip.

Beignets, square fried dough covered in powdered sugar, are the official state donut of which state?

Louisiana. French settlers brought the recipe in the 1700s, and New Orleans cafes still serve the hot squares for breakfast with milky chicory coffee.

Which state made a custard-filled donut named after its biggest city the official state donut?

Massachusetts. The Boston cream donut is a hand-sized copy of Boston cream pie, which the state had already named its official dessert.

The Cronut, a bakery craze launched in 2013, is a mash-up of a donut and what?

A croissant. Dominique Ansel's flaky fried pastry drew lines of more than 100 people within days, and he quickly trademarked the name.

French crullers are piped from which airy dough, the one used for eclairs?

Choux pastry. It has no yeast in it at all: the wet, eggy dough puffs itself up in the heat, which is why a French cruller comes out so light inside.

Which donut is shaped as a bar instead of a ring and is often iced with maple?

Long John. Some shops sell a filled one as an 'eclair', although a real eclair is baked from a different dough, and a maple-iced Long John is often just called a maple bar.

Apple cider donuts get their flavor from apple cider plus which two spices?

Cinnamon and nutmeg. Donuts became a fall treat partly because autumn butchering on the farm left plenty of extra fat for frying, just as the apples were being pressed.

Randy's Donuts, topped by a giant rooftop donut, is a famous sight near the airport of which city?

Los Angeles. The drive-in opened in the 1950s as part of a chain called Big Donut and only became Randy's in 1976, when a new owner renamed it after his son.

Which superhero eats a box of Randy's donuts while sitting inside its giant sign in a 2010 movie?

Iron Man. Tony Stark lounges in the giant donut still wearing his armor, and the filmmakers finished the real suit with digital effects for the scene.

Voodoo Doughnut, known for its bacon maple bar, started in 2003 in which city?

Portland, Oregon. In 2008 the city council passed a resolution naming the shop's Portland Crème the 'Official City Doughnut'.

Youtiao, long fried dough sticks from China, are usually eaten at breakfast with what?

Soy milk or rice porridge. A legend says the two joined strips of dough stand for a hated official and his wife, so frying and biting them was a way to get even.

Picarones, the donut-shaped dessert of Peru, are made mainly from sweet potato and which other vegetable?

Squash. Cooks in colonial Peru found Spanish buñuelos too costly to make, so they swapped in local squash and sweet potato and a new treat was born.

Which almond-filled pastry is sliced along one edge so that it spreads apart as it bakes?

Bear claw. The cuts open up in the oven to look like toes, and a German bakery in Sacramento was already advertising the name in 1914.

In the children's book Homer Price, what goes wrong with Uncle Ulysses's new donut machine?

It will not stop making donuts. The lunchroom fills with them, and they finally sell when a reward is offered for a lost bracelet that has been fried inside one.

Which chain, founded in Houston in 1936, spells its name 'Do-Nuts'?

Shipley. Founder Lawrence Shipley insisted on selling his donuts warm, saying that one bite of a hot donut would bring customers back every time.

Winchell's Donut House was founded in 1948 in Temple City, in which state?

California. Verne Winchell was a jukebox salesman who had planned a hamburger drive-in, but a rival opened across the street first, so he switched to donuts.

What did Hanson Gregory say he used to punch the first hole in a donut?

A tin pepper box. Decades later he told a newspaper he had pressed its round top into the dough to cut 'the first doughnut hole ever seen by mortal eyes'.

In Japan, an 'an-doughnut' is filled with a sweet paste made from what?

Red beans. The idea goes back to the anpan, a bean-filled bun created in the 1870s by a samurai who had lost his job and become a baker.

In Finland a sweet donut is called a 'munkki', a word that also means what?

Monk. Finns also have a savory donut: the lihapiirakka, or 'meat pie', is made from the same dough as a munkki, fried in hot oil and stuffed with minced meat and rice.

Hot jam donuts are a tradition at which famous shopping spot in Melbourne?

Queen Victoria Market. The donuts resemble a German Berliner but are served hot, rolled in sugar or cinnamon sugar almost as soon as they leave the fryer.

What do mathematicians call a donut shape?

A torus. To a mathematician a coffee mug and a ring donut count as the same shape, because each one has exactly one hole.

A baseball 'doughnut' is a heavy ring that slides onto what?

A bat. Players swing with the weight on so the bat feels lighter afterwards, but a university study found that warming up this way actually slowed their swings.

In car slang, a 'donut' is a small version of which part?

A spare tire. It is made smaller and lighter than the others to save trunk space, so it is only meant to get a car a short distance at reduced speed.

A 'doughnut chart' is which familiar kind of graph with a hole cut out of the middle?

A pie chart. The slices still show how a whole is shared out, and the empty centre leaves room to print a total or a label.

The squashed fruit nicknamed the 'donut peach' is also named after which planet?

Saturn. The flat fruit has a practical side too: its small stone does not cling to the flesh, so it pops out with a push of the thumb and leaves far less mess.

In the English dub of the original Pokémon cartoon, rice balls were famously called what?

Jelly donuts. The dubbing company swapped Japanese foods for things it thought kids abroad would know, even though the picture clearly showed white rice balls.

Arnie, the star of the picture book Arnie the Doughnut, is what kind of donut?

Chocolate frosted with sprinkles. Arnie is bought by a man called Mr. Bing, and the story follows how he escapes the fate that usually awaits a donut.

Who wrote If You Give a Dog a Donut, part of the If You Give a Mouse a Cookie series?

Laura Numeroff. Each of her 'If You Give...' books is a circular tale, where one small favor leads to another and another until the story loops back to the start.

Dunkin' ad character Fred the Baker was famous for saying what?

"Time to make the donuts!" Fred, played by actor Michael Vale, mumbled it as he dragged himself out of bed long before dawn to start the day's baking.

How did Dunkin' celebrate when it retired Fred the Baker in 1997?

A free donut day. Viewers said Fred could only leave if he was treated like an honored friend, so he got a parade and more than six million people were served a free donut.

The original 'Dunkin' Donut' had what special feature to help with dipping?

A handle. The handled donut was dropped in 2003 because each one had to be cut by hand, which cost more than rings stamped out by machine.

In 1920 New York baker Adolph Levitt built a donut machine to keep up with hungry crowds from where?

Theaters. Watching the machine turn out donuts soon became a show of its own, and by the 1930s automatic donut-making was a billed attraction at a world's fair.

In the Krispy Kreme Challenge, when in the five-mile race must runners eat a dozen donuts?

At the halfway mark. That is 2,400 calories in one sitting, and the runners still have to jog 2.5 miles back and finish the whole race in under an hour.

Which fast-food chain joined forces with Tim Hortons in 2014?

Burger King. The deal created a new parent company, Restaurant Brands International, which put its head office in Canada rather than the United States.

Tim Hortons' square dutchie donut is studded with what?

Raisins. The dutchie was one of the two treats on the very first menu in 1964, yet the chain later retired it and now brings it back only for special anniversaries.

Mister Donut, started in the US in 1956, now does most of its business on which continent?

Asia. In 1990 the owner of Dunkin' bought the chain and turned most North American shops into Dunkin' Donuts, while the Japanese business kept the name and kept growing.

Mister Donut's famous Pon de Ring is shaped like what?

A circle of connected dough balls. The shape lets you pull it apart one chewy ball at a time, and the mascot, Pon de Lion, wears the donut as his mane.

Chewy mochi donuts get their bouncy texture from flour made from what?

Glutinous rice. Despite the name it contains no gluten at all: 'glutinous' just means sticky like glue, which is where the bounce comes from.

Ted Ngoy, the 'Donut King' who ran dozens of US donut shops, fled to America from which country?

Cambodia. After fleeing the Khmer Rouge he trained at a Winchell's shop, then sponsored more than 100 refugee families and helped them start donut shops of their own.

Spudnuts, sold by a chain founded in 1940, are donuts made with flour from what?

Potatoes. Brothers Al and Bob Pelton got the idea after eating potato donuts in Germany, and their chain grew to 315 shops by 1968.

Which US president, visiting Ottawa soon after taking office, had a BeaverTail pastry named after him?

Barack Obama. On his way to the airport he stopped at the stand in Ottawa's ByWard Market, which had created an 'Obama Tail' with a Nutella O in his honour.

Donut King, a chain famous for hot cinnamon donuts, has its head office on the Gold Coast of which country?

Australia. Donut King began in Sydney in 1981, and in 2007 its donuts went into a single giant one that took 40 people more than nine hours to build.

Which cells in your body are shaped like tiny donuts with a dent instead of a hole?

Red blood cells. The dent on each side gives a cell more surface than a plain ball would have, so oxygen can pass in and out of it faster.

Salvation Army volunteers in World War I fried donuts for the troops in what unusual 'pan'?

Soldiers' helmets. With almost no kitchen gear at the front, the volunteers filled a helmet with lard for frying and rolled out the dough with a wine bottle.

Fasnachts, fried to use up lard and sugar before the fasting season, are a tradition of which American group?

The Pennsylvania Dutch. Supermarkets across eastern Pennsylvania stock them for the day, and in parts of Maryland the same treats are called kinklings and sold only then.

Paczki Day is celebrated in Detroit on which day?

Fat Tuesday. In Poland the big day is the Thursday before, but around Detroit the lines outside Polish bakeries form before dawn on the Tuesday.

Along with plum jam, petals from which flower make a traditional paczki filling?

Rose. Bakers also add a splash of spirit to the dough: it boils off in the fryer and keeps the paczki from soaking up too much oil.

German pranksters secretly fill some jam donuts with what on April Fools' Day?

Mustard. The tricked donuts are piled up with the normal ones, so nobody knows who will get the surprise.

In the city of Berlin itself, the jam donut known elsewhere as a Berliner has a name meaning what?

Pancake. Berliners call them Pfannkuchen, which confuses the rest of Germany, where that word means an actual pancake.

Which Disney film features two donut police officers, Wynnchel and Duncan, who patrol a candy racing game?

Wreck-It Ralph. The pair keep order in Sugar Rush, a candy-coated racing game, flipping the old joke about police who love donuts: here the police are the donuts.

Old-fashioned donuts are easy to spot because their surface is what?

Cracked. The dough is fried at a lower temperature and turned several times in the oil, which is what makes the surface split into rough, crunchy ridges.

Which Canadian city is famous for the Persian, a sweet roll topped with pink berry icing?

Thunder Bay. Despite the name the roll has nothing to do with Persia, and its famous icing gets its colour from real raspberries or strawberries.

In the Netherlands, chocolate sprinkles called hagelslag are commonly eaten on what?

Buttered bread. The name means 'hailstorm', and there the sprinkles are no party treat but an everyday breakfast or lunch.

Gulab jamun, the syrupy fried balls of India, are made mostly from what?

Milk solids. Milk is heated gently until nearly all the water has evaporated, and the thick paste left behind is kneaded into balls, fried and soaked in syrup.

Jalebi, the Indian sweet soaked in sugar syrup, comes out of the fryer looking like what?

Swirly pretzel shapes. The cook drops thin batter into the hot oil in quick coils, and in Iran the same sweet was traditionally handed out to the poor during Ramadan.

A medu vada, often called the Indian donut, is savory and made from what?

Lentils. It is shaped like a ring donut but eaten for breakfast with spicy sambar and chutney instead of sugar.

Mandazi, the fried dough of East Africa's Swahili coast, is often sweetened with what?

Coconut milk. Made that way they are called mahamri, and unlike American donuts they are only lightly sweet and come without any glaze or icing.

Round balls of fried dough are known as puff-puff in which West African country?

Nigeria. Cooks test the oil with a blob of the yeasty batter: if it bobs straight to the top the oil is hot enough, and spoonfuls go in to fry into golden balls.

Koeksisters, plaited strips of fried dough, are dunked straight from the fryer into what?

Ice-cold sugar syrup. The hot dough drinks it in, leaving a crunchy golden crust around a syrupy centre, and the town of Orania even has a koeksister monument.

Buñuelos, the crunchy fried treats of Mexico, are traditionally made for which holiday?

Christmas. The recipe changes from country to country: Colombians knead soft white cheese into the dough, while Cubans twist theirs into a figure 8.

Sopaipillas, the fried pastries of New Mexico, are described as being shaped like what?

Pillows. Frying makes them puff up around a hollow pocket, which is why the bigger ones can be stuffed with a savory filling for a main course.

Which fairground treat is made by pouring batter into hot oil in swirls, then dusting it with sugar?

Funnel cake. Pouring the batter through a funnel is what gives the treat its name, and the criss-crossing streams fry into one crisp, lacy tangle.

Sel roti, a crispy ring made from rice flour, is a festival treat in which country?

Nepal. Families make it for the festivals of Dashain and Tihar, and one food writer says the earliest versions were plain, with no sugar or spice at all.

Sata andagi, the round sugary balls of Okinawa, have a name that means 'sugar' plus what?

Deep-fried. In Okinawan, anda means oil and agii means fried, and the same sugary balls travelled as far as Palau, where they are known as tama.

Smultringer, Norway's little December donuts sold from stalls, have a name meaning what?

Lard rings. The name says how they are cooked: the thick dough is fried in hot lard, and they are best eaten at once, while still hot and dripping.

In Illinois's Tour de Donut bike race, what happens for every donut a rider eats?

Five minutes come off their time. The race began in 1989 as a spoof of the Tour de France, and a big enough appetite can beat a faster pair of legs.

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

Gravy rings. No gravy goes into them: the name is said to come from an old local use of the word for the hot fat they are fried in.

In Austria, Carnival-season Krapfen are traditionally filled with which jam?

Apricot. The jam-filled kind is a solid ball, while a second Austrian kind, the Bauernkrapfen, is the opposite: thick around the rim and paper-thin in the centre.