Buy-A-Doughnut Day

What the day is

Buy-A-Doughnut Day is observed on October 30. The verb matters: this is a day for buying one rather than making one, which distinguishes it from the several other doughnut days scattered through the calendar.

Origin and background

The origin of the observance is not documented.

The advice embedded in the name is better than it looks. There are two quite different doughnuts, and one of them is a poor candidate for home cooking. Cake doughnuts are chemically leavened, mixed like a batter, and forgiving. Yeast-raised doughnuts require proofing, careful handling of a slack enriched dough, and frying at a narrow temperature band, and they stale within hours. A bakery frying continuously through the morning produces something a domestic kitchen struggles to match.

The ring shape is a solution to a real problem rather than a decoration. A solid ball of dough fries unevenly, browning outside before the center cooks, and the hole removes the slowest-cooking part and increases surface area. The frequently repeated story crediting a nineteenth-century American sailor with punching out the first hole is entertaining and rests on one much later account.

Fried dough of some description exists almost everywhere: beignets, loukoumades, sufganiyot, zeppole, churros, malasadas and many more. The American doughnut's particular association with police, coffee and early shifts comes from bakeries being among the few businesses open through the night.

How to take part

• Buy from an independent bakery rather than a chain, and go early. Doughnuts are at their best within a couple of hours of frying.
• Buy a box for a workplace rather than one for yourself. The day rewards this reading.
• Ask what was fried most recently rather than choosing by appearance.
• Try a filled one from a bakery that pipes to order, which is noticeably better than pre-filled.
• Eat it the same day. Nothing about a doughnut improves overnight.