doughnut (also donut), a deep-fried ball or ring of soft dough, sometimes enriched with eggs, leavened with yeast or (latterly) baking powder, and often sprinkled with fine sugar afterwards. Many are further elaborated with candied peel, raisins, and so forth, while others enclose a blob of jam. The doughnut forms part of that whole group of fried pastries encompassed by the cruller, beignet, and fritter though many of these latter were made with choux paste or plain batter rather than a yeasted dough.
