a wordFry cake
also: fried cake
An old word on an old sign.
An older American name for the cake donut, still on some signs and menus.
Root. fried + cake: a cake cooked in fat rather than an oven
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. Cited · wp-old-fashioned-doughnut
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. Cited · wp-old-fashioned-doughnut
The story Cited · wp-old-fashioned-doughnut
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.
The particulars
| part of speech | noun |
|---|---|
| region | The United States |
| confidence | high · updated 2026-09-16 |
Who it runs with
donutsCake donutWhat it means now.and of this page it says: What the older counters called it.donutsOld-fashionedThe cake ring that kept the old shape.and of this page it says: The older name for it.wordsCrullerThe other word in the same argument.and of this page it says: The other contested word.
Where we got it
- Old-fashioned doughnut — Wikipedia · link
Where it came from: Cited a source we name · Harvested pulled from an open dataset · Tradition what the tradition says, hedged · Inference this project's reasoning · Field somebody stood there. This record as JSON.