An O Dough

Just plain dough. Deep-fried and covered either with glaze or a variety of toppings ranging from chocolate, jam, custard, cinnamon, cheese to durian (pungent fruit with yellow, custardy flesh). Doughnuts are commonly round and shaped like a ring. But there are those shaped like a sphere which is in-filled with the topping of your choice. What is the origin of doughnuts? Some believe they were introduced by the Dutch to North America. Another theory backed by archaeological evidence suggests that the pre-historic native Americans prepared these pastries in the south western part of America. Who invented the ring-shaped donuts? A man by the name of Hansen Gregory claimed the invention in 1847 and apparently the hole in centre of the dough was made with a tin pepper box, a technique which was later passed on to his mother.
Are there variations to the doughnuts? Yes, check out these interesting variations from around the world courtesy of Wikipedia.

Chinese cuisine features long deep-fried doughnut sticks that are often quite oily, hence their name in Mandarin, youtiao (oil strips); in Cantonese, this doughnut-style pastry is called yàuhjagwái. These pastries are not sweet and are often served with congee, a traditional rice porridge. There are a few sweet doughtnut-style pastries that are more regional in nature. Cantonese cuisine features an oval shaped pastry called ngàuhleisōu ("Ox-tongue pastry due to its tongue-like shape). In Taiwan, there is shuangbaotai (twins). Chinese restaurants in the US
sometimes serve small fried pastries similar to doughnut holes.

In Australia, not only do they have the traditional doughnuts, they're also famous for their own jam doughnuts. These doughnuts are sweet buns that have a filling inside. Other fillings inside these doughnuts include custard.

In Belgium, the smoutebollen are similar to the Dutch kind of oliebollen, but they usually do not contain any fruit, except for apple chunks sometimes. They are typical carnival and fair snacks and are eaten with powdered sugar on them.

In France and in New Orleans, Lousiana, there exists a fried pastry called a beignet, which is sometimes described as a French doughnut

In South Africa, a variation known as the koeksuster is popular. Another variation is the vetkoek, which is also dough deep fried in oil. It is served with mince, syrup, honey or jam.

In Greece, there is a doughnut-like snack, called loukumas , which comes in two types (one is shaped like the number 8; the other is torus shaped like the number 0), from which the first one is crispier, whereas the second one is larger and softer.

The ones in my photographs are my regular favourites covered with glaze, almonds on white chocolate and chocolate rice bubbles (named Moonraker after the James Bond movie).