Blessing Breakfast- Who Doesn't Love Doughnuts

"Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen."

Plain donuts with icing
and sprinkles

Who doesn’t love doughnuts? (Or donuts, if that’s how you prefer to spell it!) I was particularly interested in how doughnuts became so popular, especially since I am a diabetic and if I indulge in a yummy snack like the donut… well, "don't eat" has always been a challenge. Anyway…
A doughnut is simply a type of fried dough with various toppings and fillings. Doughnuts are popular in many countries and prepared in various forms as a sweet snack that can be homemade or purchased in bakeries, supermarkets, food stalls and franchised specialty outlets.

Around 1847, Elizibeth Gregory, a New England ship captain's mother, made a deep-fried dough that used her son's spice cargo of nutmeg, cinnamon, and lemon rind. She made the deep fried cakes for son Hansen and his crew so they could store the pastry on long voyages...and to help ward off scurvy and colds.

Mrs. Gregory put hazel nuts or walnuts in the center, where the dough might not cook through, and called them doughnuts. So, that's where the "nuts" in donuts came from?

Bacon donuts

Hansen always took credit for the hole in the doughnut. Some doughnut historians think that Hansen was a bit of a cheapskate and was just trying to save on food costs.

Others say that he gave the doughnut its first hole when, in the middle of a terrible storm and in order to get both hands on the ships wheel, he crammed one of his mothers fried sensations onto one of the wooded spokes of the wheel.

Yet another tale claims that he decided, after a visit from an angel, that the doughy center of the fried cakes had to go. Interesting, huh?

By 1934, at the World's Fair in Chicago, doughnuts were billed as "the hit food of the Century of Progress". Seeing them made by machines "automatically" somehow made them seem all the more futuristic.

Doughnuts became beloved. Legend says that dunking donuts first became a trend when actress Mae Murray accidentally dropped a donut in her coffee one day at Lindy's Deli on Broadway.

In the 1934 film It Happened One Night newspaperman Clark Gable teaches young runaway heiress Claudette Corbet how to "dunk". In 1937 a popular song proclaimed that you can live on coffee and doughnuts if "you're in love".

During World War II, Red Cross women, known as Doughnut Dollies passed out hot doughnuts to the hard fighting soldiers.

Today, in the United States alone, over 10 billion doughnuts are made every year.

Devil's Death Dance Donuts

Here are a few variations that are fun.

1. Maple Bacon Donut. (shown above) It's exactly what it sounds like — a doughnut dipped in maple glaze and chopped bacon, banana slices, optional.

2. Molasses Guinness Pear. (not shown) This molasses doughnut is made with golden raisins, bits of crystallized ginger and Guinness-poached pears — and then it's topped with sticky Guinness glaze.

Voodoo Doughnut

3. The Devil's Death Dance, Hypnotic Donuts. At Hypnotic Donuts in Dallas, Texas, they bake up the Devil's Death Dance for customers with an affinity for sweets with heat.

Billed as the world's spiciest doughnut, the Devil's Death Dance features fresh jalapeño, serrano and habanero slices along with icing made from ghost peppers (the hottest in the world) and a sprinkle of cayenne.

Some of their less intense doughnuts include their Poppin Berry, with strawberry frosting and crushed Pop-Tarts, and their S'more doughnut, featuring chocolate, marshmallows and crushed graham crackers.

4. Voodoo Doughnut. It's shaped like a voodoo doll, filled with raspberry jelly and frosted with chocolate icing. It also comes with a pretzel stick "stake" if you should feel the need to release your aggressions on the edible effigy.

5. Plain Donuts. No need to explain. I'll guess that you've had a bite or two of a plain donut.

Which do you think is the all-time favorite donut?

Thanks for reading Being Grand. That's what's happening today.