Pink BoxDonuts (21)

holes, munchkins, donut bites

The centres cut out of ring donuts, fried and sold by the bag — or, more often now, made on purpose from the same dough or batter and never cut from anything.

buttermilk donut

Cake batter cut in a bar rather than a ring, fried so it splits open along the top, and glazed heavily enough that the glaze runs into the split.

fry cake, cake-type, chemical-leavened donut

A ring of thick batter, not dough, raised by baking powder or soda rather than yeast and dropped straight into the fat from a depositor.

devil's food, chocolate old-fashioned

A cake ring with cocoa in the batter, glazed or sugared. Dark, dense, and sweeter than the plain cake ring on the published numbers.

apple cider doughnut

An American cake donut flavoured with apple cider, cinnamon and nutmeg in the batter, usually rolled in cinnamon or granulated sugar.

old fashioned, sour cream old-fashioned, fry cake

A cake ring with a cracked surface and tapered edges, glazed or sugared so the glaze pools in the cracks. The crack is the point: more surface, crisper edge, and a ring that holds up to coffee longer than a raised one.

French-style beignet, New Orleans beignet

A deep-fried pastry of French origin, in New Orleans a square of dough fried until it puffs hollow and buried in confectioner's sugar. Beignet means bump.

cruller, kruller

A ring extruded from choux paste — flour cooked into butter and water, then beaten with eggs — piped through a star tip so it fries up ridged and hollow, and glazed thin. No yeast, no baking powder: steam lifts it.

pon de ring, poi mochi

A chewy donut made with glutinous rice flour or tapioca flour, usually formed as a ring of eight connected balls that pull apart. Moist, springy, and heavier in the hand than it looks.

fasnacht, faschnacht, fosnaught

A Pennsylvania Dutch fried donut, often made with potato dough, eaten in the days of Carnival and above all on Shrove Tuesday.

potato donut

A donut made with potato flour or mashed potato in the dough. Softer crumb, longer shelf life, and a faint savoury note under the sugar.

fritter

Chopped apple and cinnamon folded through raised dough, torn rather than cut, fried craggy and glazed all over so the sugar catches in every fold. No two come out the same shape.

custard-filled, cream-filled, Boston cream (when chocolate-topped)

A raised round with no hole, filled with a set custard — Bavarian cream is custard lightened with whipped cream and held with gelatin — and finished in sugar, or iced with chocolate, at which point most counters call it…

bearclaw

A sweet yeast dough — bread dough carrying more shortening than usual — filled with almond paste and sometimes raisins, shaped in a semicircle with slices cut along the curved edge so the sections separate as it proofs…

bismark, jelly donut, filled donut

A round raised donut with no hole, fried, then injected with fruit preserve, custard or cream and finished in sugar or icing.

raised glazed, yeast glazed, the glazed

A ring of yeast dough, proofed until it is full of gas, fried about two and a half minutes, then dragged through a thin sugar glaze while it is still hot enough to melt it. The glaze sets into a shell you can hear.

bar, finger doughnut, cream stick

A bar-shaped raised donut, glazed all over or iced on top, sometimes filled with custard or cream.

malassada, Hawaiian donut, filhós (related)

A flattened round of yeasted dough, fried and rolled in sugar — cinnamon sugar, often — with no hole and traditionally no filling.

maple log, maple long john, maple creamstick

A bar of raised dough, fried, then topped end to end with maple-flavoured icing. Sometimes filled with custard or cream; sometimes finished with chopped bacon, which is a newer idea and an argued one.

paczki, punchki, pączek (sing.)

A Polish filled donut: a flattened ball of rich dough — eggs, fat, sugar, yeast, sometimes milk — deep fried, filled with jam or cream, and finished in powdered sugar, icing, glaze or dried orange zest.

sufganiyot, Hanukkah donut

A round filled donut, traditionally red jelly with icing sugar on top, eaten at Hanukkah. Dulce de leche fillings became common after South American immigration to Israel early in this century.