This morning we had doughboys for breakfast, one of our extra-special treats. What is a doughboy? Depends what state you’re in and who you ask!
A quick look on Wikapedia shows one meaning:
Doughboy is an informal term for an American soldier, especially members of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in World War I. The term dates back to the Mexican–American War of 1846–48.
The term was used sparingly during World War II, gradually replaced by the appellations “G.I.“, “Troop“, or “Dogface“, but was still used in popular songs of the day, as in the 1942 song “Johnny Doughboy found a Rose in Ireland.”[1] It dropped out of popular use soon after World War II.[2]
Then there’s the ever-famous Pillsbury Doughboy too, as seen here on this book that I saw on Amazon.com.
But still no, that’s not the kind of doughboy that we had!!
Our kind of doughboys are sometimes called Funnel Cakes or Malasades if you are Portugese.
In basic terms, it’s fried dough covered in sugar or cinnamon/sugar or jelly or powdered sugar and it is DELICOUS!! It is *not* healthy, which is why it’s a special treat.
Don makes fantastic doughboys, and this time when he made them, I took photos for you.
One thing about making doughboys is you need to find dough. Where we live, it’s easy to find and it’s only $1.00 per bag in most places. When we visit my inlaws we bring our dough with us because there’s none to be found in the south.
When Don is making doughboys for a large group he makes 3 or 4 pounds of dough. The dough is stored in the fridge so you need to take it out a little bit ahead of time. It does not need to rise, but it needs to get the chill out before it’s used.
Once it’s at room temperature, you need to separate the dough into smaller pieces which will get bigger once the dough is deep fried.
We use a regular frying pan, as deep as we have, to fry the dough. You fry several pieces at a time in vegetable (or canola) oil until they are a dark, golden brown color.

Once the doughboys are golden brown on both sides, they can be taken out of the frying pan and placed on layers of paper toweling.
Once they’re done on both sides, we recommend taking them out and placing them on a couple layers of paper toweling, to catch the extra oil as it drips off.
We prefer to sprinkle regular sugar on top, but you can sprinkle anything on top that you prefer.
Enjoy!
Oh Jen I am so sad to hear you can’t find dough in the South. I so hope that isn’t true where we are moving to! We love making white pizza with it! Don’s doughboys look awesome!