bread. To me bread is a mixture of flour, liquid, and leavener which has gluten purposefully developed, and doughnuts fit that.
000topchef
You can call it bread if you like but first you need to make a tuna sandwich with it
canitbenaptimeyet
Yes
Articulated_Lorry
Bun (ie yeast or naturally-raised, sweetened bread)
drcrunknasty
Sweet bread
mikgub
If I’m looking for a place to buy donuts, I’m looking for a pastry shop. If I’m trying to decide whether or not to make them myself, they read an awful lot like a bread recipe to me.
stainedgreenberet
If you asked someone for a piece of bread and they gave you a donut, how would you feel?
fart_knocker3000
It’s fried bread. When you don’t fry it, you have brioche.
DeadDove_donotupvote
It goes through a soft stale stage, it’s a pastry
BellasMeal
For me, a German, donuts are never in hell bread.
It’s pastry.
Rammipallero
They’re holes.
spanktruck
Not bread. The tomato (both fruit and not fruit) of pastry.
Bread is a term for usually savoury, usually baked goods, usually leavened with yeast (which requires time), and usually containing few ingredients other than flour/water/salt/yeast (and especially little sugar), often (but definitely not always, or even usually) with a deliberately crunchy crust. Until recently, they almost always attempted to create a highly developed gluten structure (through kneading or rests). The further away you get from each of those “usuallies,” the less likely it is bread, even though each individual “usually” has widely-accepted exceptions (soda bread, flatbreads, those fancy instagram focaccias, Wonderbread, gluten-free loaves, etc.). Doughnuts are (usually) fried, (usually) sweet, only sometimes leavened with yeast, do not attempt to develop gluten, and contain many other ingredients (especially sugar). This puts it comfortably outside the most common definition of bread.
Pastry gets a lot more complicated because absolutely no one fully agrees on what the limits of pastry are unless they came up in the same culinary tradition (and I don’t mean “national culinary tradition”, because I would enjoy hearing the average English or American city argue about which things are pastries if we lined up the 100 most common flour-based items in front of them). Is it limited to pâtisserie, meaning traditional stiff enriched doughs, often laminated with butter (in which case: not a pastry)? Does it mean any sweet enriched dough (in which case: a pastry)?
>In a judgment published on Tuesday, the court ruled that the bread served at Subway, the US chain that hawks giant sandwiches in 110 countries and territories, could not in fact be defined as bread because of its high sugar content.
>
>The ruling followed an appeal by Bookfinders Ltd, Subway’s Irish franchisee. The company had argued that the bread used in Subway sandwiches counted as a staple food and was consequently exempt from VAT.
>
>However, as the court pointed out, Ireland’s Value-Added Tax Act of 1972 draws a distinction between staple foods – bread, tea, coffee, cocoa, milk and “preparations or extracts of meat or eggs” – and “more discretionary indulgences” such as ice-cream, chocolate, pastries, crisps, popcorn and roasted nuts.
>
>The clincher was the act’s strict provision that the amount of sugar in bread “shall not exceed 2% of the weight of flour included in the dough”.
>Subway’s bread, however, contains five times as much sugar. Or, as the supreme court put it: “In this case, there is no dispute that the bread supplied by Subway in its heated sandwiches has a sugar content of 10% of the weight of the flour included in the dough.”
chimer1cal
They are made with yeast and flour so they count as a sweet bread and are thus more bread than banana bread lol.
Rivahrat1990
A hotdog is not a sandwich
crankygerbil
I would classify them simply as yummy
Artano_Arendae
god dammit, now i want these so much
Few_Leather6356
Donuts definitely lean more towards pastry, especially with their sugary coating and fillings.
Dawgs919
Delicious
zik-ra
Pastry
LolaBijou
It’s a fried enriched bread dough.
bakehaus
Depends on the doughnut.
Cake: pastry
Raised: Bread
French/Cruller: pastry
Beignet: bread
etc.
ashrules901
If you work somewhere where you label them everyone would call them a pastry
SheNeverDies
Is a tomato vegetable or fruit? Is banana bread bread or cake? Is a hippo mammal or fish?
wtf_is_a_user
i consider them pastries. they ARE both but i have a thing for calling them pastries.
Antique-System-2940
Cake.
autumnlover1515
Pastry
Getoutofthekitchenn
What kind of donut tho?
OnePurplePigeon
Donuts are inferior bagels… Now watch the world burn
LargeNHot
I would argue that most pastries are just a subset of bread?
adimadoz
At my local donut shop = enriched bread. So good. Really is a meal by itself.
Donuts from supermarket = junk food?
Bezulba
And when you have donuts with fillings, is it a sandwich?
misssiya
# Pastry in Denmark
awfulandonfire
i’m a simple man. if it’s got yeast it’s bread, if it’s got baking soda it’s quickbread. some bread is pastry.
Tututaco74
Canned Flaky Layers Pilsbury biscuits make a mean donut 🍩
Prudent_Valuable603
Pastry. A version of this is made in almost all countries around the world. Fried dough covered in sugar. Stuffed with vanilla custard cream or not.
IdahoJoel
Why is pastry not considered bread?
I feel like pastry is a subgroup of breads, not a stand-alone category.
powerhungrymouse
Pastry.
EquivalentPlant3289
Donut is donut
OpalescentShrooms
They’re a pastry. It’s not really a discussion lol.
sparklesquidd
Let’s throw in sweet roll, which is what ancient Wisconsinites call donuts lmao
gritoni
As a person from a country in which the word bread is really limited in its use, the way the english language tosses the word around is -wild-. Anything can be classified as bread apparently. I’m noy saying it’s wrong, I’m saying I wouldn’t have guessed in a million years that banana bread, donuts and dinner rolls were all “bread”
aidanurbano
Bread
Zduum
It’s a necessity.
Lunavixen15
Ehhhh, depends on variety, but for simplicity they all often fall under pastry, because pastry is fairly vaguely defined and covers most confectionary items, which doughnuts also fall under
45 Comments
bread. To me bread is a mixture of flour, liquid, and leavener which has gluten purposefully developed, and doughnuts fit that.
You can call it bread if you like but first you need to make a tuna sandwich with it
Yes
Bun (ie yeast or naturally-raised, sweetened bread)
Sweet bread
If I’m looking for a place to buy donuts, I’m looking for a pastry shop. If I’m trying to decide whether or not to make them myself, they read an awful lot like a bread recipe to me.
If you asked someone for a piece of bread and they gave you a donut, how would you feel?
It’s fried bread. When you don’t fry it, you have brioche.
It goes through a soft stale stage, it’s a pastry
For me, a German, donuts are never in hell bread.
It’s pastry.
They’re holes.
Not bread. The tomato (both fruit and not fruit) of pastry.
Bread is a term for usually savoury, usually baked goods, usually leavened with yeast (which requires time), and usually containing few ingredients other than flour/water/salt/yeast (and especially little sugar), often (but definitely not always, or even usually) with a deliberately crunchy crust. Until recently, they almost always attempted to create a highly developed gluten structure (through kneading or rests). The further away you get from each of those “usuallies,” the less likely it is bread, even though each individual “usually” has widely-accepted exceptions (soda bread, flatbreads, those fancy instagram focaccias, Wonderbread, gluten-free loaves, etc.). Doughnuts are (usually) fried, (usually) sweet, only sometimes leavened with yeast, do not attempt to develop gluten, and contain many other ingredients (especially sugar). This puts it comfortably outside the most common definition of bread.
Pastry gets a lot more complicated because absolutely no one fully agrees on what the limits of pastry are unless they came up in the same culinary tradition (and I don’t mean “national culinary tradition”, because I would enjoy hearing the average English or American city argue about which things are pastries if we lined up the 100 most common flour-based items in front of them). Is it limited to pâtisserie, meaning traditional stiff enriched doughs, often laminated with butter (in which case: not a pastry)? Does it mean any sweet enriched dough (in which case: a pastry)?
Whenever I see a question like this, I’m reminded of a [2020 Irish Court ruling](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/01/irish-court-rules-subway-bread-is-not-bread) that called Subway bread a “confection!”
>In a judgment published on Tuesday, the court ruled that the bread served at Subway, the US chain that hawks giant sandwiches in 110 countries and territories, could not in fact be defined as bread because of its high sugar content.
>
>The ruling followed an appeal by Bookfinders Ltd, Subway’s Irish franchisee. The company had argued that the bread used in Subway sandwiches counted as a staple food and was consequently exempt from VAT.
>
>However, as the court pointed out, Ireland’s Value-Added Tax Act of 1972 draws a distinction between staple foods – bread, tea, coffee, cocoa, milk and “preparations or extracts of meat or eggs” – and “more discretionary indulgences” such as ice-cream, chocolate, pastries, crisps, popcorn and roasted nuts.
>
>The clincher was the act’s strict provision that the amount of sugar in bread “shall not exceed 2% of the weight of flour included in the dough”.
>Subway’s bread, however, contains five times as much sugar. Or, as the supreme court put it: “In this case, there is no dispute that the bread supplied by Subway in its heated sandwiches has a sugar content of 10% of the weight of the flour included in the dough.”
They are made with yeast and flour so they count as a sweet bread and are thus more bread than banana bread lol.
A hotdog is not a sandwich
I would classify them simply as yummy
god dammit, now i want these so much
Donuts definitely lean more towards pastry, especially with their sugary coating and fillings.
Delicious
Pastry
It’s a fried enriched bread dough.
Depends on the doughnut.
Cake: pastry
Raised: Bread
French/Cruller: pastry
Beignet: bread
etc.
If you work somewhere where you label them everyone would call them a pastry
Is a tomato vegetable or fruit? Is banana bread bread or cake? Is a hippo mammal or fish?
i consider them pastries. they ARE both but i have a thing for calling them pastries.
Cake.
Pastry
What kind of donut tho?
Donuts are inferior bagels… Now watch the world burn
I would argue that most pastries are just a subset of bread?
At my local donut shop = enriched bread. So good. Really is a meal by itself.
Donuts from supermarket = junk food?
And when you have donuts with fillings, is it a sandwich?
# Pastry in Denmark
i’m a simple man. if it’s got yeast it’s bread, if it’s got baking soda it’s quickbread. some bread is pastry.
Canned Flaky Layers Pilsbury biscuits make a mean donut 🍩
Pastry. A version of this is made in almost all countries around the world. Fried dough covered in sugar. Stuffed with vanilla custard cream or not.
Why is pastry not considered bread?
I feel like pastry is a subgroup of breads, not a stand-alone category.
Pastry.
Donut is donut
They’re a pastry. It’s not really a discussion lol.
Let’s throw in sweet roll, which is what ancient Wisconsinites call donuts lmao
As a person from a country in which the word bread is really limited in its use, the way the english language tosses the word around is -wild-. Anything can be classified as bread apparently.
I’m noy saying it’s wrong, I’m saying I wouldn’t have guessed in a million years that banana bread, donuts and dinner rolls were all “bread”
Bread
It’s a necessity.
Ehhhh, depends on variety, but for simplicity they all often fall under pastry, because pastry is fairly vaguely defined and covers most confectionary items, which doughnuts also fall under