{
 "id": "fry-cake",
 "type": "term",
 "names": {
  "name": "Fry cake",
  "aliases": [
   "fried cake"
  ],
  "said": "An old word on an old sign."
 },
 "region": [
  "us"
 ],
 "facets": {
  "letter": "F",
  "part_of_speech": "noun"
 },
 "text": {
  "what": "An older American name for the cake donut, still on some signs and menus.",
  "story": "Historically the terms doughnut, cruller and fry cake were used loosely and argued over. In the older usage a doughnut was raised dough, risen and dropped into fat, while crullers and fried cakes were leavened with baking powder — soda, in colonial times — rolled out and cut with a smaller circle taken from the middle. By that usage it was the fried cake that had the hole."
 },
 "kin": [
  {
   "to": "cake-donut",
   "as": "What it means now.",
   "rel": "donut"
  },
  {
   "to": "old-fashioned",
   "as": "The cake ring that kept the old shape.",
   "rel": "donut"
  },
  {
   "to": "cruller-word",
   "as": "The other word in the same argument.",
   "rel": "term"
  }
 ],
 "sources": [
  "s:wp-old-fashioned-doughnut"
 ],
 "provenance": {
  "default": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-old-fashioned-doughnut"
  },
  "fields": {
   "names.said": {
    "tier": "tradition"
   }
  }
 },
 "schema": 1,
 "confidence": "high",
 "updated": "2026-09-16",
 "etymology": {
  "root": "fried + cake: a cake cooked in fat rather than an oven",
  "first_attested": "",
  "note": "In older American usage a doughnut was raised dough and a fried cake was the baking-powder ring — and it was the fried cake that had the hole.",
  "tier": "cited",
  "source": "s:wp-old-fashioned-doughnut"
 },
 "blurb": "An older American name for the cake donut, still on some signs and menus.",
 "region_terms": [
  {
   "key": "us",
   "name": "The United States",
   "state": null,
   "note": "use when a node belongs to the whole country"
  }
 ],
 "kin_out": [
  {
   "to": "cake-donut",
   "type": "donut",
   "name": "Cake donut",
   "as": "What it means now.",
   "rel": "donut"
  },
  {
   "to": "old-fashioned",
   "type": "donut",
   "name": "Old-fashioned",
   "as": "The cake ring that kept the old shape.",
   "rel": "donut"
  },
  {
   "to": "cruller-word",
   "type": "term",
   "name": "Cruller",
   "as": "The other word in the same argument.",
   "rel": "term"
  }
 ],
 "source_list": [
  {
   "id": "s:wp-old-fashioned-doughnut",
   "kind": "web",
   "title": "Old-fashioned doughnut — Wikipedia",
   "publisher": "Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old-fashioned_doughnut",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16",
   "license": "CC BY-SA 4.0"
  }
 ],
 "tiers": {
  "text.what": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-old-fashioned-doughnut"
  },
  "text.story": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-old-fashioned-doughnut"
  },
  "etymology": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-old-fashioned-doughnut"
  }
 },
 "primary_image": null,
 "tag_facts": [],
 "recognition_facts": [],
 "acclaim": 0,
 "kin_in": [
  {
   "from": "cake-donut",
   "type": "donut",
   "name": "Cake donut",
   "as": "What the older counters called it.",
   "rel": "term"
  },
  {
   "from": "old-fashioned",
   "type": "donut",
   "name": "Old-fashioned",
   "as": "The older name for it.",
   "rel": "term"
  },
  {
   "from": "cruller-word",
   "type": "term",
   "name": "Cruller",
   "as": "The other contested word.",
   "rel": "term"
  }
 ]
}