Whether cake or raised, plain or glazed, filled with jelly or topped with chocolate and sprinkles, doughnuts are among the most popular confections in the world. Unsurprisingly, Snopes has had many occasions to poke holes in viral stories about doughnuts and the companies that make them.
Famously, for example, it is commonly believed that President John F. Kennedy accidentally proclaimed himself a jelly doughnut when he uttered the line "Ich bin ein Berliner" during a speech in Germany in 1963. Was his grasp of German really that bad? We endeavored to find out.
Then there's the popular doughnut-origin story: Supposedly, a penny-pinching, 19th-century sea captain came up with the idea of cutting holes in the fried balls of dough to save money. True, or half-baked? See our ruling about this and other doughnut rumors and tales below.