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1. Dunkin Doughnuts
2. Union square doughnuts
3. Honey dew donuts

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Doughnut worry...be happy! It's certainly easy to keep smile on your face when you've got a doughnut in your hand. But what type of doughnut do you favor? In recent years, all sorts of creative interpretations of the doughnut have appeared in recipes in books, blogs, and in retail stores.

Gettin' Creative with the Dough

Ranging from the use of unusual flavors such as bacon or even spam in doughnuts, to interesting uses for the holey treats such as using them for French toast or even ice cream sandwiches, or making them from croissants, it seems that doughnuts are the medium of choice for creative fans of food and cooking.

All photos via CakeSpy.com unless otherwise noted.

After reading this post, you may want to test your own doughnut creativity. Get started with this tutorial on how to make doughnuts at home, then set your imagination loose! Doughnut forget to share your projects on Craftsy!

You doughnut have to worry about finding inspiration with creative doughnuts like these.

Bacon doughnuts:

Does bacon make everything better? In the case of doughnuts, the answer is yes based on the incredible newfound popularity of bacon doughnuts. Bacon paired with a maple glaze or icing in particular is a popular flavor profile, as it calls to mind that delicious bite of maple frosting that meets bacon on the breakfast plate.

Bar snack doughnuts:

Start out with a chocolate doughnut, then coat it with caramel glaze. Then top it with an assemblage of snack foods inspired by bar snacks: pretzels, peanuts, M&Ms, and potato chips. This treat was dreamed up by Glazed and Infused in Chicago.

Biscuit doughnuts:

Go from zero to doughnuts in less than fifteen minutes-all you need is a tube of ready-made biscuits from the refrigerated section of your grocery store. As for the recipe? Cut a hole from the center, fry in hot oil, and voila-doughnuts! Top them with whatever your favorite flavors might be for a satisfying doughnut treat.

Cereal doughnuts:

Doughnuts and cereal are both popular morning sweets. So why not bring them together? That's the idea behind these cereal doughnuts, which are gaining in popularity at doughnut shops such as Voodoo Donut in Portland, Oregon. Some variations are even made with milk steeped with cereal and garnished with-you guessed it-cereal.

Doughnut French toast:

Two more breakfast classics get combined in one decadent dish. The idea is simple: take your favorite French toast recipe ( overnight French toast works, too) but substitute doughnuts for the bread in the recipe. Deliciousness ensues.

Chocolate chip cookie dough glazed doughnuts:

It's a known fact that chocolate chip cookie dough makes just about everything better. Doughnuts are included, as evidenced by these doughnuts glazed with a last meal-worthy chocolate chip cookie dough glaze.

Photo via Oh She Glows

Cronut:

The latest star of the baked goods world? The cronut, which is the love child of doughnut and croissant. Flaky layers of croissant dough are fried and layered with cream for what promises to be a memorable, if not virtuous, treat. Learn to how to make a croissant that's oh-so delicious and buttery right at home, and then just imagine the taste when you turn it into a doughnut. Mmmmm mmmm....mouthwatering!

Doughnut bagel:

Bagels have been called "doughnuts with high self esteem". Well, this treat is extra highly esteemed. It looks like a bagel, but is actually a doughnut. The cream cheese is actually frosting, and those poppy seeds are adhered with melted butter. Oh, yum.

Doughnut burger:

In case the bacon topped doughnut wasn't extreme enough for you...try a doughnut burger. The idea is simple: make burgers. Assemble your toppings. Then put them between, instead of a bun, a doughnut. Salty, sweet, and pretty impressive. Related: the doughnut breakfast sandwich.

Doughnut cookies:

Technically, these are not doughnuts, but visually they'll pass for the real thing. Make doughnuts without frying by simply using a doughnut cutter or a doughnut pan to shape your favorite cutout cookie dough. Decorate with icing and sprinkles and you have a sweet that looks like a doughnut, but that is delicate enough to enjoy all day long.

Doughnut hole croquembouche:

No more shall doughnut holes play second fiddle to the main event. In this centerpiece-worthy sweet, doughnut holes are the main event, assembled in rows and coated with glaze to form the most gorgeous (and sweet) croquembouche you've ever seen or tasted.

Doughnut ice cream sandwiches:

Doughnuts become hot weather-friendly with the addition of a little ice cream. It's a treat easily made at home by cutting a doughnut in half, inserting a scoop of ice cream, and either eating immediately or keeping in the freezer until a sweet craving hits.

Photo via Robyn Lee

Doughnut pies:

Instead of dough...why not make doughnuts with pie crust? The recipe results in something very decadent and surprisingly delicious: flaky, buttery, and like hand pie meets doughnut.

Doughnut shortcake:

Another delicious idea for filling your doughnuts? Prepare all of the fixings for strawberry shortcake, but sandwich them between doughnut halves instead of cake or biscuits. It's a beautiful way to have your cake and eat your doughnut, too.

German chocolate doughnut:

Cake doughnut...or just cake? The line is blurred with this creative doughnut served at Rocket Donuts in Bellingham, Washington. It starts with a rich chocolate cake base, which is fried and glazed to perfection, but then topped with the fixings better known from German chocolate cake: a pecan coconut caramel topping, and of course a cherry on top.

Maple Spam doughnuts:

Spam...and doughnuts? Believe it. This recipe was actually the prize winner at a state fair baking contest! The lightly crunchy, sweet doughnut exterior contrasts with the crisp, crackly fried pork. Finished with a creamy, maple-infused frosting and crunchy SPAM bits on top, it makes for a veritable sea of contrasting textures and sweet and salty flavors-and for an overall wholly enjoyable holey treat.

Potato doughnuts:

It used to be that mashed potatoes were added to the mix to "stretch" doughnut dough during times of shortage. But a happy effect is that it also lends a delicious moisture and tender texture to the fried rounds. An interesting recipe to try, and in good company with other unusual cakes.

Red velvet doughnut:

A classic layer cake translates well in doughnut form. Cocoa and plenty of red food coloring contribute to the success of this treat...but of course, a healthy dollop of cream cheese icing piped in the doughnut's holey midsection doesn't hurt.

Savory sour cream and onion doughnuts:

Sour cream is a common ingredient in doughnuts. But onion? It sound more like a chip than a doughnut, but it works. As noted on , "The result was a barely sweet, cakey, light doughnut that I couldn't stop eating."

Texas size doughnuts:

Size matters, and in this case, it's very large. No, this doesn't necessarily change the taste of the doughnut, but it does change the experience-every now and again, it's fun to feel like Tom Thumb while holding up a doughnut that is supersized! Although it does beg the question...how big was the pot they used to fry this behemoth?

Photo via Round Rock Donuts

Unicorn doughnuts:

There's no hole, but these treats are plenty magical and sweet. Using a cookie cutter to cut doughnut dough before frying yields fun treats in any number of shapes. Naturally, unicorns are a fantastic shape choice. Rainbow themed decoration optional.

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Collection of 20 Creative Doughnuts: Unusual Flavors & Uses

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Doughnut worry...be happy! It's certainly easy to keep smile on your face when you've got a doughnut in your hand. But what type of doughnut do you favor? In recent years, all sorts of creative interpretations of the doughnut have appeared in recipes in books, blogs, and in retail stores.

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1. Mix all the ingredients into batter
2. Wrap the dough with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator for 2 to 4 hours.
3. Take the dough out and roll it out
4. cut out each doughnut into a circle with a hole in the middle.
5. Heat up oil to 365 degrees
6. put doughnuts in until golden brown
7. put whatever toppings on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeiNNZ8tfT8

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Doughnut Showdown is an activity designed for teams of approximately 6-12 players. All players will work together to name their "bakery". Once all of the bakery names are in, teams will receive their doughnuts. Each team receives tray of baked goods and are given the rules to the game.

Bakeries will have 30 minutes to build their themed display. Presentation theme is provided, right before the time officially starts.

A new twist to this activity will be the addition of cookware, glassware and bakeware. Teams must decorate their doughnuts to represent the theme. They are also given a "secret ingredient" which must be incorporated into their display in some way. Our doughnut showdown is not a free for all though! Each team will have a budget that they must work within, so you must choose your ingredients carefully because once you use up your budget no additional ingredients will be given out.

At the end of each round, all teams must have their display displayed on our table. Teams will be judged on the following:

Overall Presentation

How well the doughnut display represent the given Theme

How well the bakery used the available ingredients and the complexity of the theme

How well the bakery incorporated the "secret ingredient"

Cleanliness ("bakers'" hands and tables)

Creativity

After the judges have tallied their scores, all bakeries are welcome to get their doughnuts and taste! Highest score wins the gold medals!

Inventory (Ingredients vary based on time of year and the theme!)

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Doughnut Showdown is an activity designed for teams of approximately 6-12 players. All players will work together to name their "bakery". Once all of the bakery names are in, teams will receive their doughnuts. Each team receives tray of baked goods and are given the rules to the game.

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1. 1 tablespoon of active dry yeast
2. 1 cup of whole milk, heated to 110 degrees
3. 2 to 2 and a half cups of bread flour
4. 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
5. 3 large egg yolks
6. 2 tablespoons of superfine sugar
7. half a teaspoon of table salt
8. 4 tablespoons of unsalted butter at room temperature
9. vegetable oil for frying
10. glaze or frosting

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Who doesn't love doughnuts? (Or donuts, if that's how you prefer to spell it!) When I first heard that "National Doughnut Day" was actually a thing, the first thing I did was look into the history of doughnuts. I was particularly interested in how doughnuts became so popular in America.
iStock.com/Turnervisual
MY OTHER RECIPES

To answer all of my burning, deep-fried doughnut questions, I dug out my trusty Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink. Here's what they had to say on the subject:

"Doughnuts are deep-fried cakes with a long European history and roots in still earlier Middle Eastern cuisine. They were introduced to America by the Dutch in New Netherlands to America as oliekoecken (oil cakes or fried cakes). Made of yeast dough rich in eggs and butter, spices, and dried fruits, their sweetness came from the fruit and the final dusting of sugar. The dough was often somewhat sticky (additional flour toughened and masked the spicy and buttery flavors), and was dropped as blobs off the end of a spoon into hot rapeseed oil (canola). The resulting doughnuts took the form of irregular balls, at some point called oliebollen, or oil (fried) balls. They were eaten during the dutch Christmas season, which extended through New Year's through Twelfth Night (January 6), and for special occasions throughout the year."

The history of the doughnut goes back centuries, long before the discovery of the New World. In ancient Rome and Greece, cooks would fry strips of pastry dough and coat them with honey or fish sauce (eww!). In Medieval times, Arab cooks started frying up small portions of unsweetened yeast dough, drenching the plain fried blobs in sugary syrup to sweeten them.

These Arab fritters spread into northern Europe in the 1400's and became popular throughout England, Germany and the Netherlands. In 15th century Germany, where sugar was hard to come by, they were often cooked savory with fillings like meat or mushroom. The Pilgrims and Dutch settlers brought doughnuts to America.

Eventually holes were added to the center of the fritter to create the shape of doughnut we're familiar with today. This invention came out of necessity. At a certain point, egg yolks were added to the dough- it was discovered that this produced a richer and firmer end-product. The problem was, the fritters would often end up raw in the center after frying- the exterior would cook before the inner part of the doughnut did. The addition of a hole in the center eliminated that problem.

The hole invention is generally attributed to Captain Hanson Gregory, a Dutch sailor whose mother made him some doughnuts for a voyage. There are many variations on this story, so who knows what actually happened, but here is my favorite version- on June 22, 1847, Captain Gregory's ship hit a sudden storm. He impaled the doughnut on one of the spokes on the steering wheel to keep his hands free. The spoke drove a hole through the raw center of the doughnut. Captain Gregory liked the doughnuts better that way, minus the raw center- and voila! The doughnut hole was born. Probably not true, but it's a fun story nonetheless.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Over the years, doughnuts have become a distinctly American food passion. In his book Glazed America, author Paul Mullins says that the first printed recipe for doughnuts can be found in an English cookbook dating back to 1803, included as part of an appendix of American recipes.

Doughnuts took on a patriotic resonance on the front lines of World War I, when female Salvation Army workers known as "Doughnut Girls" would fry and distribute doughnuts to the American soldiers fighting in France. They offered a taste of home to the soldiers, who became known as "Doughboys." Doughnut Girls were replaced by "Doughnut Dollies" during World War II.

Of course, those of us who celebrate Hanukkah know that the doughnut also has a rich history in Jewish cuisine. Among Mizrachi and Sephardic Jews, deep-fried dough balls known as sufganiyot or bimuelos are prepared today much as there were more than a thousand years ago. They're most often served on holidays and festive occasions like Hanukkah, where deep-fried foods are symbolically prepared to remind us of the miracle of the Hanukkah oil.
iStock.com/Sarah Bossert
American doughnut culture was heavily influenced by the Jews, in some rather unexpected ways! A Jewish refugee from czarist Russian named Adolph Levitt is responsible for inventing the first automated doughnut machine in 1920. Thanks to Levitt, machine-produced doughnuts were labeled the "Hit Food of the Century of Progress" at the 1934 Chicago World's Fair.

Leave it to Gil Marks and his Encyclopedia of Jewish Food to enlighten me with the most interesting doughnut story of the day. Read on!

"William Rosenberg (1916-2002), the son of immigrant Jewish parents, was operating an industrial catering business in which he sold snacks in converted secondhand trucks near factories around his native Dorchester, Massachusetts. He noticed that doughnuts and coffee accounted for 40 percent of his sales, and in 1948 launched a doughnut shop called the Open Kettle in Quincy, Massachusetts, the heart of America's original doughnut country, aiming for a blue-collar clientele...

"This unassuming store would eventually become, in Rosenberg's words, 'the world's largest coffee and baked goods chain.' Two years after opening, Rosenberg changed the store's name to Dunkin' Donuts and five years after that, arranged the first franchise in nearby Worcester... By 1963, there were 100 Dunkin' Donuts shops, and by 1979, there were 1,000.
iStock.com/Jill_InspiredByDesign
"By the time of Rosenberg's death, there were more than 5,000 Dunkin' Donuts shops, including about 40 outlets under kosher supervision, in nearly 40 countries, and serving nearly 2 million customers per day."

Now if that isn't an inspiring doughnut story, I don't know what is!!

Today, I leave you with my favorite doughnut-making video of all time. The Swedish Chef is an expert on the fine art of making doughnuts. Happy National Doughnut Day! What's your favorite kind of doughnut? 🙂

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Who doesn't love doughnuts? (Or donuts, if that's how you prefer to spell it!) When I first heard that "National Doughnut Day" was actually a thing, the first thing I did was look into the history of doughnuts. I was particularly interested in how doughnuts became so popular in America.

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Doughnuts were believed to have been mad in North America in the 19th century by Dutch settlers and the name doughnut is referred to a Dutch word that means oil cake.