Donuts don’t have a single clear birthplace, but the modern donut most likely originated with Dutch settlers in early America, especially around New York (then New Amsterdam), who brought their fried “olykoeks” or “oily cakes.” Over time, these simple balls of sweet fried dough evolved—drawing on older European and Middle Eastern fried-dough traditions—into the ring-shaped, sugar-glazed donuts we recognize today.

Quick Scoop: So Where Did Donuts Come From?

Think of donuts as the global love child of fried dough traditions, with their “big break” happening in early America.

  • Ancient Greeks and Romans already ate sweet fried doughs, sometimes drizzled with honey.
  • Medieval Arab cooks made small fried yeast dough pieces soaked in sugary syrup; this style spread across Europe.
  • In northern Europe (especially the Netherlands), these ideas turned into “olykoeks” — sweet, fried “oily cakes.”
  • Dutch settlers carried these olykoeks to New Amsterdam (modern New York), where they became the ancestors of American donuts.

In other words, fried dough is ancient and global, but the donut as a named, distinct pastry is strongly tied to Dutch-American cooking in the 17th–19th centuries.

How They Became Ring-Shaped

Originally, those early donuts were just solid balls of dough and often cooked unevenly, leaving raw, doughy centers.

  • In the 19th century, American sailor Hanson Gregory claimed he solved this by punching out the center in 1847, creating the classic ring shape.
  • Removing the middle helped the dough cook more evenly in hot fat, so no raw center.
  • Over time, this ring shape became the standard “donut,” though solid filled versions (like jelly or custard) stayed popular alongside it.

Whether Gregory truly “invented” the hole or just popularized a good kitchen hack is debated, but his story is part of donut lore.

Donuts in America

Once in the U.S., donuts became more than just a fried dough—they turned into a cultural staple.

  • By the 19th century, recipes for “doughnuts” appeared in American cookbooks, sometimes spelled “doughnut,” sometimes “donut.”
  • The name may have originally referred either to small “nuts” of dough or dough with nuts or fillings in the center, though the exact origin of the word is unclear.
  • Donuts became especially popular in the early 20th century and gained even more fame during World War I, when volunteers served them to U.S. soldiers in Europe.

From there, the rise of donut shops and coffee-and-donut culture made them a symbol of everyday American snacking.

Mini Story: From Oily Cake to Icon

Picture a Dutch settler in 1600s New Amsterdam frying little balls of sweet dough in a heavy iron pot. The centers are a bit gummy, but people love the taste enough not to complain much. Two centuries later, a frustrated sailor punches out the middle so they cook evenly, tosses the rings into hot fat, and accidentally creates a neat, stackable, easy-to-hold pastry that pairs perfectly with coffee. Fast-forward again and you have glass cases of frosted, filled, and glazed donuts on every corner.

Quick TL;DR

  • Fried dough: very old, found in ancient Greece, Rome, and the Middle East.
  • Direct donut ancestors: Dutch “olykoeks” brought to early New York by settlers.
  • Classic ring donut: popularized in 19th-century America, with the hole often credited to sailor Hanson Gregory.
  • Modern donut: firmly rooted in American food culture, but with deep, global fried-dough ancestry.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.