The First Filled Donuts Were Nothing Like The Ones We Eat Today

Step inside any donut shop, and a display of filled treats may quickly catch your eye. Though it might be difficult to imagine, filled donuts weren't always packing sweet centers of cream, custard, or jam. Original recipes were stuffed with more savory ingredients, like meat and mushrooms. The result may have looked somewhat similar to the plump morsels you see today at Krispy Kreme and Dunkin, but the taste certainly was savory rather than sweet — more of a meal than a dessert.

Cooks would shove fish, cheese, and meat into the center of fried dough, creating something closer to a savory fried dumpling than anything that looks like the sweet filled donuts we wolf down with coffee. Though the recipe evolved according to the ingredients available, the idea of filling dough with an ingredient held on. The first record of a jelly donut was published in 1485, in a German-produced book that detailed the concept of sandwiching jam between two rounds of yeast bread dough before deep-frying it. The recipe spread. The treat was initially a holiday-time special, but donuts concealing sweet ingredients were soon found with increasing regularity.

Given the culinary landscape in which donuts were created, a savory-leaning recipe makes sense, as filling pockets of fried dough with ingredients already in the kitchen was a realistic approach for thrifty cooks. Sugar was a luxury for many households, but frying dough in lard was an easy way to whip up filling, flavorful dishes. Once sugar became more accessible and cheap, bakers could take more liberties to bend recipes into sweeter-leaning lanes. The jelly-filled donut embedded itself into the American culinary landscape thanks to Dutch immigrants, and its legacy continues in various forms to this day, to the point where donuts have become part of daily life for many.

The path from savory meat-filled pockets of dough to crème brûlée donuts and strawberry jelly doughnut recipes may seem like an unlikely arc of culinary history, but the progression is one that shows how available and affordable ingredients can dictate food trends. Frying dough and filling it with various ingredients is a technique that has been universally embraced by bakers looking to bring satisfying tastes into their kitchens and — thankfully for donut lovers — has endured for centuries.