You wake up on Monday morning. You’re not in a bad mood, but not a good one either; something feels off about today. As you’re eating the same bland cereal you do every morning, it hits you—an unshakeable craving for a doughnut. Lucky for you, the doughnut shop, Uncle Doughnuts, is just down the street. As you browse the doughnut options, you come across a cake doughnut. Isn’t that contradictory? A cake, doughnut?
What is a doughnut anyway? Let’s begin with the official definition from Merriam-Webster dictionary: “A small usually ring-shaped piece of sweet fried dough.” If you don’t like that definition, the Oxford English Dictionary provides a better one: “A small, spongy, fried cake of sweetened dough, usually in the shape of a ring or ball, and sometimes with a filling.” OK, let’s break that down: small, spongy, fried CAKE of sweetened dough. Cake is literally in the definition of a doughnut.
So, what’s the big deal with cake doughnut hate? The definition of a doughnut is cake. Put it this way: every square is a rectangle, but not every rectangle is a square. Simple, now apply that same logic to doughnuts. Every doughnut is a cake, but not every cake is a doughnut. Insisting cake doughnuts aren’t doughnuts is like saying deep dish pizza isn’t pizza. Food comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. You don’t say pumpkin cookies are not cookies because they have pumpkin in them. If pumpkin is not your thing, you simply don’t eat pumpkin-flavored food.
If you don’t like cake doughnuts, say it, but don’t try to push them out of the doughnut family.