Tomorrow, the first Friday in June, is National Doughnut Day! This sweet treat was invented in the 1800s to fry cake batter better. Sometimes the outside of the cake would burn while the middle was still undercooked and goopy. So Elizabeth Gregory put walnuts in the middle of the ball of dough, calling it a “dough-nut.” Now we just leave a hole instead, and America eats billions of doughnuts every year!
Wee ones: What shape is a donut?
Little kids: If you order 2 chocolate donuts, 2 sugar-glazed, and 2 cinnamon, how many donuts do you have? Bonus: What is the latest day in June that National Doughnut Day can happen?
Big kids: People always eat up the chocolate donuts faster. If you serve 18 donuts, all chocolate or powdered, how many should be chocolate if you want twice as many chocolate as powdered? Bonus: If instead you put out 3 dozen donuts, and want the same number of powdered and jelly, but as many chocolate as the powdered and jelly put together, now how many of each do you need?
Answers:
Wee ones: A circle — or in 3D, a “torus.”
Little kids: 6 donuts. Bonus: On June 7 – that’s happening this year, 2024!
Big kids: 12 chocolate, leaving you 6 powdered. Bonus: 18 chocolate, 9 powdered and 9 jelly. You need 36 donuts (3 x 12), and if there are the same number of chocolate as everything else put together, then the chocolate will be half the pile. Then the powdered and jelly split the other half.
