Very soft sweet wheatflour batter, traditionally raised by yeast but more commonly using soda, forced though a ring-shaped former into hot fat. Sprinkled with sugar.
William Carew Hazlitt's 'Popular antiquities of Great Britain' of 1870 has; "At Baldock, Herts, the children call..[Shrove Tuesday] Dough-nut Day, from the small cakes fried in brass skillets over the fire with hog's lard." (OED)