These olykoeks were later described by writer Washington Irving in his 1809 book A History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty as “balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog's fat, and called doughnuts, or olykoeks.”

In Britain, they became jam doughnuts. And in general American parlance, they are jelly doughnuts. Poles named jelly doughnuts paczki (flower buds). Polish Jews fried these doughnuts in schmaltz or oil instead of lard and called them ponchiks. In certain areas of Poland, they became the favorite Hanukkah dessert.

Cambodian refugees, who fled the Khmer Rouge, opened many of the area's doughnut shops in the 1970s and '80s. The pink doughnut boxes that have now become ubiquitous in Southern California are said to be traced to one of the Cambodian shop owners.

Minneapolis and St. Paul have a fantastic doughnut scene. Some of the Cities' best shops have been around for decades, wafting the sweet, tantalizing scents of fried dough, sugar, and cinnamon over their neighborhoods across generations.