Donut-liciously New... Or is it?

From 'olykoeks' to doughnuts..

by Ain Azam

Ever wonder how doughnuts came about? Its history dates back to as early as the mid-19^th century when the Dutch called it ‘olykoeks’ (oily cakes).  These cakes were balls of dough fried in fat until golden brown. They were stuffed with nuts, fruits or other fillings because the centre of the cake did not cook as fast as the outside. This was how the name ‘doughnut’ came about.

In 1847, Hansen Gregory, an American ship captain, had another solution to solve the problem of the uncooked centre of the doughnut. Punching a hole in the centre of the doughnut increased the surface area of the doughnut exposed to the hot oil.

During World War 1, female volunteers served doughnuts to millions of homesick American soldiers and these doughnuts offered a taste of home.

In 1920, the first doughnut machine was invented by Adolph Levitt, who sold fried doughnuts from his bakery. This machine helped to churn out the doughnuts faster.

Since then, doughnuts became more famous with the emerging of doughnut giants, such as Krispy Kreme and Dunkin’ Donuts. These giants improvised traditional sugar-coated doughnuts and created new flavours to cater to the tastes of consumers nowadays.

Want to know why doughnuts have holes? Host Ian Knauer explains while he makes some traditional doughnuts as seen in the link below.

Hungry History: Donuts 

Getting the Story: Our Doughnut-venture

by Nurfarahin


On early Friday morning, we headed out to Orchard Road where we braved through the bustling crowd rushing for work. We went down to Krispy Kreme outlet in Tangs.

I quickly took a few shots of the outlet, staff and their mouth-watering doughnuts while my group mates tried to ask the staff for an interview. We were told that video recording was not allowed. So, we could not proceed with the interview.

After which, we headed down to the streets outside Takashimaya to interview the public. However, it was a struggle for us. Many people were rushing for work or they just did not have the time.  Despite the situation, we managed to get seven people that agreed to be interviewed.

After we were done with the public interviews, we headed down to Dunkin’ Donuts and J.Co outlets in AMK Hub and Raffles City respectively to try to get an interview from the manager. Still, we were unsuccessful.

Going Nuts Over Doughnuts

Doughnuts & its flavours craze locals

Locals were seen to form queues in the opening of the first Krispy Kreme outlet in Tangs in 2013.

Doughnuts and its flavours have changed over the years. Locals who often consume doughnuts have different expectations of the product in the current era. Many of them mentioned that appeal, taste, flavour and price are indeed the factors that influence their choice of doughnuts. 

Some of the brands that are usually related to doughnuts are Krispy Kreme which opened its first store in Singapore during October last year, Dunkin' Donuts and J.CO. Being well established multi-national companies, these doughnut giants started off with no sweat doing their business in the country.

With these giants here, doughnuts suddenly took on a new image and these flavours have managed to get into the taste buds of our locals and changed their perception of doughnuts.

These companies have managed to capture the consumers’ interest and accommodate to their preference. These flavours come about because consumers always want to try new stuff and these doughnut giants have to keep up producing new flavours to ensure that customers will flock back to them for more. 

We can see that with new doughnut flavours emerging now and in the future, doughnuts will always remain as a favourite amongst our locals.