Get 'em while they're hot -- and free

Around here we think of every day as doughnut day, but those with more self-restraint know the real thing comes the first Friday in June -- today, in fact.

The celebration was launched in 1938, in the depths of the Great Depression, as a Salvation Army fund-raiser honoring the volunteer “lassies” who served coffee and fresh doughnuts by the thousands to homesick soldiers in France during World War I.
 
To mark the occasion, doughnut purveyor Krispy Kreme is offering a free calorie bomb. No doubt you can find your nearest store in your sleep, but here's a way to find one if for some reason you've awakened in a strange part of town. Wait for the “hot light” if you want one of their notorious melt-in-your-mouth glazed, but you can choose one (1) of any of their varieties at participating stores. Here’s a peek at their lineup.

No Krispy Kremes in your neck of the woods? Dunkin Donuts hasn’t ponied up any freebies that we know, but that’s no reason not to drop a couple of bucks on a cruller and a cuppa joe and think about Doughboys, doughnuts and the women who served ‘em up hot. 

• Bing: Find doughnut recipes
  

If you want to get all gourmet on us, Serious Eats offers a look at what makes a great doughnut and a honor roll of the shops that fry them.

And if you're in Chicago, you can swing by the real Donut Day, which aims to raise money to fight hunger in the Windy City. As long as you're being authentic, you might try the original Salvation Army recipe, too:

7-1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup lard
8 eggs
3 large cans evaporated milk
3 large cans water
18 cups flour
18 teaspoons baking powder
7-1/2 teaspoons salt
8 teaspoons nutmeg

Cream sugar and lard together, beat eggs, add evaporated milk and water. Add liquid to creamed mixture. Mix flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg in large sieve and sift into other mixture. Add enough flour to make e stiff dough. Roll and cut. Five pounds of lard are required to fry the doughnuts. Yield: approximately 250 doughnuts.

Published June 5, 2008