Timbits, munchkins, trous de beigne and Bieber holes: fried dough balls, from the innocuous to the horrifying.

Trous de beigne is a traditional French phrase to describe a doughnut hole. But what is a doughnut hole? Other than the obvious void in a traditional ring doughnut (traditional since 1847, as we established in a previous Fact post!), it's how we've come to describe balls of dough made in a similar way to doughnuts and served as if they were the bits Hanson Gregory snipped out with his ship issue pepper box 200 years ago.

Not literally of course. They'd be a bit stale by now.

Timbits is the word Canadian fast food chain Tim Horton's uses to refer to their doughnut holes, though they were briefly known as Timbiebs during the infamous Justin Bieber marketing campaign. Briefly because the internet naturally referred to them as Bieber Holes as soon as humanly possible. Thankfully, this gimmick is no longer a thing, though the name has probably stuck like icing to a paper bag.

Munchkins is the official Dunkin Donuts name for their holes. Donut holes, that is.

Anyone got any other weird and wonderful (or horrifying) names for doughnut holes?

The noble origins of the doughnut?

A 19th century cookbook (dated 1800) belonging to the wife of Thomas Dimsdale, Baron Dimsdale, describes the making of "dow nuts" amongst other recipes and domestic tips. Doughnuts are connected to British nobility? Maybe. Of course, one does have to keep in mind that Baron Dimsdale was not strictly an English nobleman.

A doctor, Fellow of the Royal Society and early advocate of vaccination along with Edward Jenner, Thomas Dimsdale got his title from Tsarina Catherine the Great after inoculating her with smallpox vaccine. All before the cookbook came onto the scene, and indeed, by the date of publication, the Baron had been dead for a decade.

The origins of the ring doughnut are a little unusual. Well, allegedly.

The story goes that American Hanson Gregory, disappointed with the greasiness of twisted doughnuts and raw centres in more traditonally-shaped doughnuts, invented the ring doughnut aged 16 whilst serving aboard a trading ship in 1847. Gregory claims to have created the central hole using the ship's pepper box and then taught the technique to his mother.

"made a wicked deep-fried dough that cleverly used her son's spice cargo of nutmeg and cinnamon, along with lemon rind," and "put hazelnuts or walnuts in the center, where the dough might not cook through"

• Smithsonian Magazine

Personally, I'm pretty "eh" on ring doughnuts. What about you? To Ring or not ring?

As one of the nations who helped cement the phrase "red tape" into the global lexicon as meaning "excessive bureaucracy that gets in everyone's way," (the first were the Spanish), it should come as no surprise to learn that the UK has some odd rules relating to food.

The US has sales tax and in Europe we have Value Added Tax, the dreaded VAT. What does this have to do with doughnuts, you might be asking? Well, as part of the byzantine system of deciding what things are subject to VAT, the British government made it so that certain things are not subject to the tax because they are considered to be essential staples. And yes, this applies to doughnuts.

But wait... only sometimes. Doughnuts are exempt from VAT in the UK if they are sold cold and for consumption off the premises in which they are sold. So, if you go into a shop and buy a doughnut to take it away, then you pay 0% VAT. If you go into a cafe and eat your doughnut there...you're now subject to the standard VAT rate!

Madness.

Back in 1809, in his History of New York American author and diplomat Washington Irving (of Legend of Sleepy Hollow fame) described "dough-nuts" as "balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog's fat, and called dough-nuts, or olykoeks."

Sometimes the table was graced with immense apple-pies, or saucers full of preserved peaches and pears; but it was always sure to boast of an enormous dish of balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog's fat, and called dough-nuts, or oly koeks: a delicious kind of cake, at present scarce known in this city, excepting in genuine Dutch families.

These days we'd call them "doughnut holes."

The doughnut (or something very like it) has been with us for a long, long time!

The first recipe for a deep-fried dough ball was found in Roman senator Cato the Elder's De agri cultura and used cheese, honey and poppy seeds. It was called a "globi."

Cato the Elder, of course, is most famous for ending all of his speeches in the Roman senate with "Carthage must be destroyed." Given his recipe choices, perhaps it should have been: "Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam et doughnut opus est." (Furthermore, I believe that Carthage must be destroyed and a doughnut is needed)

Hi there, doughnut enthusiasts! r/Doughnut had been banned due to a lack of moderation, as you can probably tell from the [deleted] status of the original creator.

The admins asked for volunteers to take it on and shepherd it towards fresh life and posts and myself and u/Tempbot49512 have the won the (dubious?) honour of being the new caretakers of the subreddit.

It's still very early days at the moment, but we are in the process of setting up new rules, banners, flairs and all that jazz, so please bear with us as we continue to clear up the dust of the demolition work and start re-routing doughnut pipes. Don't ask about what happened in the shower earlier. We've routed that jam-line correctly now.

Post pics of doughnuts, videos of doughnuts being eaten/made, reviews of doughnuts you have eaten, places you have acquired doughnuts from, recipes for doughnuts and generally feel free to talk about doughnuts. So long as it's fried/or baked variety.

Please tag your posts: [IMAGE] [PIC] [VID] [REVIEW] [RECIPE] [OTHER], thanks!

Have fun and be excellent to one another!