Ten things you didn't know about doughnuts

• Recipes: Make your own doughnuts

Everyone loves a good doughnut. It could be the strawberry-glazed type loved by Homer Simpson, the jam-filled variety devoured by Garth in Wayne's World, or the custard-oozing balls that tourists and locals queue for at Justin Gellatly's Bread Ahead stall in London's Borough Market.

Whatever your iced vice, here are 10 pieces of trivia to remember the next time you bite into a Krispy Kreme.

1. Delicious oil cakes

In her book Donuts, Tracey Meharg writes that the treats we know and love were introduced to Manhattan by the Dutch in the early 1800s. At the time, they were known as olykoeks ("oil cakes"). In a description of the Dutch settlers in New York (then New Amsterdam), author Washington Irving wrote: "The table . . . was always sure to boast an enormous dish of balls of sweetened dough, fried in hog's fat, and called dough nuts."

Mmm . . . hog's fat.

2. Better than banana bread?

A chocolate-flavoured iced doughnut at a McCafe might be a healthier choice than a slice of banana bread. According to McDonald's website, an average doughnut serving contains 2020 kilojoules, compared with banana bread's whopping 2570.

3. What's in a nom?

There's a French doughnut called pets de nonne that translates, literally, as "nun's farts". Pets de nonne are deep-fried tennis-ball-shaped bits of choux pastry dusted in icing sugar and no one really knows the etymology of the name.

In Simple French Food, Richard Olney writes that in pre-19th-century cookbooks, the little fritters were called pets de putain. A quick Google shows there is a considerable difference between the nonne and putain professions.

4. King of Australia

Donut King might look like a franchise with its roots in the United States, but the first Donut King store opened in 1981 in Sydney. In 2008, it expanded internationally and started sprinkling cinnamon on round things in Shanghai, China.

5. A world of doughnuts

Chocolate-dipped churros are as common on menus these days as pork-belly negronis and barrel-aged kale. However, there's a whole other world of doughnuts just waiting to be tasted. In The Penguin Companion to Food, Alan Davidson writes about the Spanish rosquilla (made from sweet dough and aniseed-flavoured oil), the jam and apricot-filled sufganiyah eaten during Hanukkah in Israel, and the malasadas of Hawaii, sometimes made with evaporated milk and rolled in honey, vanilla and nutmeg.

There's also the Chinese youtiao, which ascends to new levels if you can find some pandan custard to dip it in.

6. Dunk it

, in which dishevelled reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable) shows spoiled heiress Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert) the art of the dunk. "Don't let it soak so long. A dip and – plop, into your mouth," Warne says. "If you let it soak so long, it'll get soft and fall off. It's all a matter of timing. I ought to write a book about it."

Neither Gable nor Warne ever did write that book because, frankly, no one would have given a damn.

7. The food of the future is here!

Also in 1934, doughnuts were promoted as "The Hit Food of the Century of Progress" at the Chicago World's Fair. The combination of fresh ingredients and the whiz-bang automation of the doughnut machine was the cause of much oohing and ahhing in the early 20th century.

8. D'oh-nut

In 2013, Britain's Daily Mail reported that a eight-year-old boy had cleared ₤1000 out of his parent's bank account, after buying virtual doughnuts on The Simpsons iPad game, Tapped Out. "Why, you little . . ."

9. The hole truth

It is believed that the doughnut acquired its hole in the middle of the 19th century (a homemaker's catalogue from 1870 advertises equipment for cutting out the holes). The hole exists so the doughnut cooks evenly, making it golden and crisp on the outside and fresh and fluffy within.

10. And nothing but the hole truth

Every object has a point where all its mass is concentrated. Hit this centre of mass with a finger or similar, and the object should balance perfectly. The centre of mass for a holed doughnut is in the middle of the ring, also known as thin air or nothing. The point of the story is don't try to balance a doughnut on your nose, not just because of how it will make you look.