Did Krispy Kreme Really Put Potatoes In Its Donuts?

Krispy Kreme is known for keeping its iconic recipe close to its chest, but the company story is that the founder of Krispy Kreme didn't create the recipe himself. The story as the company tells it is that Vernon Rudolph bought a secret recipe from a New Orleans chef in the 1930s from which he built the business, and that mysterious story is a big part of its brand; there's this fun notion that only a handful of people know the recipe which makes it all the more unattainable.

But hold up, where do potatoes come into it? It's one of many fun facts about Krispy Kreme, but is it true? Well, back in the early 2000s, Vernon Rudolph's son, Carver, teamed up with researchers to trace the family recipe's roots and their findings suggest that the earliest formula of the donuts likely involved a "cream" (the famous "Kreme" of their name) made of fluffed egg whites that were whisked into mashed potatoes with sugar, shortening, skim milk, and flour before being fried and glazed. This research linked the technique back to a man named Joe LeBoeuf, a talented river barge cook whose donuts inspired the Rudolph family. While the exact and original formula has never been published (so no one can say for certain) the historians' read is clear: Potatoes were very likely in the mix.

But now the story stops being so outlandish because it turns out, potatoes aren't even that crazy a curveball when it comes to donuts. Potato donuts, known as spudnuts , kinklings, or fastnachts, have actually been showing up in America — in cookbooks and shops — for centuries. Using mashed potatoes or potato starch is a clever move to bring out extra moisture, so early Krispy Kreme recipes may very well have used spuds to achieve the donuts' beloved tender bite, which complements their glazes so well.

However, these days, Krispy Kreme donuts are a whole different story. The brand's Original Glazed lists enriched wheat flour, water, sugar, vegetable oils, yeast, milk, eggs, emulsifiers, and conditioners in its ingredient list — not a potato in sight. The massive scale of the brand has meant there was a need to centralize production decades ago by using standardized dry mixes to keep texture and flavor consistent across its many donut shops around the world. In fact, even grocery stores sell Krispy Kreme donuts, which makes a modern-day return to its mashed potato roots pretty unsustainable. So, yes, the first Krispy Kreme donuts probably did contain potatoes, at least according to historians. But the ones you're grabbing today? Definitely not. These days, it's just a good origin story.