Actually, a New England spice trader named Captain Gregory claims he was the first one to put a hole in an olykoek, which is what the pasty was called when it came over from the Netherlands.

Legend has it that Gregory’s mother made a mean doughnut with some of her son’s spices. The only problem was the middle of the doughnuts didn’t always cook all the way through. Mrs. Gregory filled the center with walnuts or hazelnuts to compensate, but one day her son – perhaps in a moment of anti-walnut rage – took a pepper tin and punched it through the center. Thus the doughnut hole came to be.

Really though, Captain Gregory was only carrying out the will of thermodynamics when he got rid of that gooey center once and for all. See, it wasn’t Mrs. Gregory’s fault that she couldn’t get the center of her olykoeks to cook as fast as the rest. It has to do with the very nature of heat.

Heat is really just atomic motion. The faster you jiggle the atoms in something, the hotter it gets. When you think of it that way, it’s easy to understand that heat transfer needs contact. One thing has to be touching another in order to heat it up.

So in doughnut cooking, the atoms of the hot oil move really fast. When you drop the doughnut batter into the oil, the oil atoms start to jostle the dough atoms that they touch. Those dough atoms jiggle the dough atoms next to them, and so on. Obviously, the dough that’s farthest away from the oil – i.e. the dough at the center – will cook last, or not at all if you’re afraid of burning the outside while you wait.

So “Furious Pete” here can thank thermodynamics for making his Krispy Kremes just a bit smaller and easier to eat. I wish I could explain Furious Pete as simply as I can explain thermodynamics…