Are Donut Holes Made From The Center Of A Donut? | Real Deal

No, most donut holes today are fried as separate dough balls, though the idea originally came from scraps cut out of ring-shaped donuts.

Walk into any bakery case and you will see tidy rows of rings and little round bites sitting side by side. It feels natural to think those tiny bites are just the punched out centers from bigger donuts, yet the story behind them is more tangled than that.

The habit of frying sweet dough with a hole in the middle grew out of older fried cakes that often stayed raw inside. Sailors and bakers learned that removing the dense center helped the dough cook evenly. Small balls of dough certainly showed up as a handy way to use trimmings, yet that is only one chapter in the long story of donut holes.

Are Donut Holes Made From The Center Of A Donut? Old Bakery Habits

Early ring donuts did not appear out of nowhere. Cooks already knew about small fried dough balls long before the ring shape caught on. Dutch settlers fried olykoeks, little lumps of dough that tasted lovely but often stayed gummy in the middle. Later, bakers in the United States began shaping dough into rings so hot fat could reach more surface area.

In several popular origin stories, a Maine sailor named Hanson Gregory punched the center out of his mother’s cakes while at sea so they would cook through. Years later, writers repeated that story and museums picked it up. A feature in Smithsonian Magazine traces how Gregory became linked with the classic ring shape and the idea of a missing center that could be fried on its own.

Those trimmings would have been small discs of dough, easy to toss into the fryer. In small bakeries, especially before automated machines, staff often did save those bits. Selling them as donut holes gave customers a cheaper treat and kept waste down. So in that old hand-cut setting, many donut holes really were made from the center of a donut.

How Ring Donuts And Donut Holes Are Usually Formed

Once donuts turned into a large commercial product, hand cutting every ring and every hole stopped making sense for most shops. The industry moved toward machines that shape dough in a steady stream. That change loosened the link between a ring donut and a donut hole.

Cake donuts often start as a batter pushed through a machine directly into the fryer. The machine drops either rings or small balls of batter. There is no extra center to remove. Yeast raised donuts often start as sheets of dough that get stamped with ring cutters, but large producers usually treat the dough for rings and the dough for holes as separate product lines.

A detailed entry on the donut hole explains that chains such as Dunkin’ first promoted holes as a way to use dough taken from the center of ring donuts. Production later shifted, and most modern donut holes at large chains now come from dedicated machines that form small balls of dough on purpose rather than scraps.

Hand Cut Versus Machine Formed Donuts

Today you will find three broad styles of production. Some small bakeries still roll dough by hand and cut rings using metal cutters. Some rely on semi automatic machines that drop batter or dough. Large factories run fully automated lines that handle mixing, proofing, shaping, frying, glazing, and packing.

Only that first style, the fully hand cut approach, produces a steady stream of little center pieces that can turn into true donut holes. Even there, the baker has choices. Those small discs can be proofed and fried as is, rolled together into knots, or tossed back into the scrap pile for more rings later in the shift.

When Donut Holes Really Are Donut Centers

In a small shop that rolls dough with a pin and uses ring cutters, the answer can still be yes. The baker punches out rings, throws the centers into a tray, proofs them, fries them, and suddenly the tray holds warm donut holes that share the exact same dough and schedule as the rings in the case.

Many people love the texture of these true centers. They taste like the ring, but because they are smaller, the outside to inside ratio changes. You get more browned surface, more glaze in each bite, and no pale raw patch hiding in the middle.

Production Style	How The Ring Donut Is Shaped	What Becomes Of The Center Or Hole
Hand Cut Yeast Dough	Dough rolled out and rings stamped with cutters	Small discs saved and fried as donut holes or other shapes
Hand Cut Cake Dough	Soft dough patted or rolled, then cut into rings	Centers often fried as holes, sometimes folded back into scraps
Drop Machine Cake Donuts	Batter pushed through a nozzle directly into hot fat	No cutout center; machine forms balls or rings from flowing batter
Yeast Donut Line In A Chain	Automated cutters or extruders form rings from proofed dough	Extra dough trimmed and reworked; holes made as separate items
Donut Hole Only Machine	Small plunger or depositor forms round pieces only	All product is donut holes; no link to ring donuts at all
Home Kitchen Biscuit Donuts	Canned biscuits shaped into rings in a pan of oil	Cook keeps the punched centers and fries them as quick bites
Filled Donuts With No Hole	Dough shaped as solid rounds, then filled after frying	No center removed; any donut holes sold are made separately

How Big Chains Handle Donut Holes Today

Brand names turned donut holes into a product line of their own. Dunkin’ branded theirs as Munchkins in the 1970s, and Tim Hortons in Canada launched Timbits not long after. Early marketing talked about using up the cut out dough, which matched how many small shops worked at the time.

Industry history collected on the Washington Post food desk and summarized by later writers shows a slow move away from scrap based production. As volume climbed, chains invested in machines that shape small balls directly so they could manage size, frying time, and coating, and keep the ring lines running smoothly.

Modern donut hole machines drop dozens of small pieces into the fryer each minute. Workers scoop them out with screens, toss them in glazes, sugars, or powdered toppings, and pack them into boxes or bags. Even if those holes still use the same dough formula as the rings, they are no longer the center of anything.

How Shape Changes Texture, Fry Time, And Taste

Even when donut holes are not physically punched from the center of a ring, they share the same basic dough. The main change lies in size and shape. That change affects how they fry, how much glaze they pick up, and how they feel when you bite into them.

A ring presents a large outer surface with a wide empty middle. A hole presents a compact sphere or near sphere. Hot fat reaches the middle of a hole faster because of its smaller diameter. Bakers can pull holes from the fryer sooner than rings, which keeps the crumb soft while still giving a crisp shell.

That tiny size also means each bite carries a lot of coating. Powdered sugar clings to every side. Cinnamon sugar wraps the full surface. A light glaze blankets the whole piece instead of forming a thin shell on top of a larger pastry.

Cake Donut Holes Versus Yeast Donut Holes

Cake style holes use chemical leavening, like baking powder, so the crumb feels tender and fine grained. Yeast holes rise more before frying and often feel airier inside. Both types show up at shops, and both can start either from cut centers or from dedicated dough pieces.

Writers for the food section of The Spruce Eats describe how bakers adapted older fried dough recipes to modern fats and equipment. Those shifts changed textures, crust color, and sweetness. Even with these shifts, many traditions still draw a line between yeast rings for a light chew and cake rings or holes for a denser bite.

Donut Or Hole Type	Typical Size	Texture And Frying Notes
Yeast Ring Donut	3 to 4 inches across	Light crumb, longer proof time, slightly longer fry time
Cake Ring Donut	2.5 to 3 inches across	Denser crumb, mixed as batter, drops cleanly from machines
Yeast Donut Hole	About 1 inch across	Airy center, fast fry, easy to coat fully in glaze or sugar
Cake Donut Hole	About 1 inch across	Tighter crumb, tender bite, often sold by the dozen
Filled Round Donut	2.5 to 3 inches across	No hole, filled after frying with jam, custard, or cream

Why The Answer Matters To Donut Fans

Knowing whether donut holes come from the center of a donut will not change how they taste, yet it does shape how you think about them. People who like thrift and old bakery traditions often enjoy the idea of eating what would have been waste. Fans of consistency may feel more drawn to holes formed on purpose for even size and coating.

Food historians, including writers cited by Smithsonian and reporters who interviewed descendants of Hanson Gregory, show that the ring plus hole story grew over many decades. Donut holes today sit at the meeting point of legend, marketing, and practicality. That mix is part of their charm.

So, that common question about donut holes and centers has a split answer. In a small, hand cut shop, quite often yes. In a busy chain store or factory, the little bites sitting in a box owe their shape to dedicated equipment, not to a missing middle. Either way, they are still just sweet fried dough, ready to dunk in coffee and share with a friend.