The classic donut shape was a solution to a raw dough problem. Hanson Gregory, an American ship captain, is credited with 'inventing' the hole in 1847. At the time, fried dough cakes (olykoeks) often had raw, doughy centers because the outside would cook and brown before the heat could reach the middle. Gregory used a tin pepper box to punch a hole in the center of the dough before frying, which allowed the hot oil to cook the entire ring evenly. This everyday shape allowed for a perfectly crisp and cooked pastry every time. The 'holes' themselves were eventually sold as separate bite-sized snacks, though in modern industrial production, they are usually made by specifically extruding small balls of dough rather than saving the center of the ring.