Oceania → Cook Islands → Rarotonga
🍢 SNACK
Cook Islands Doughnuts
Big, dense, sweet yeast doughnuts shaped by hand into rings and deep-fried golden, eaten plain and dunked in tea at every Cook Islands gathering.
Cook Islands · medium · serves 22
prep 30 min · cook 40 min · plus 1 h 30 min hands-off time
~389 cal · 6g protein · 54g carbs · 17g fat · 1g fiber · 19g sugars · 3g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
↓ Jump to Recipe
AI-generated illustration
At every Cook Islands function, one food you cannot walk past is the doughnut. It sits beside the ika mata and the mainese (potato salad) at family feasts, and it is a quick, easy snack any day. Cook Islands doughnuts are big as a wheel, sweet, and denser and sturdier than a bakery doughnut.
They are made from a soft, sticky yeast dough of flour, sugar, milk, eggs and a little oil. Once it has risen, the dough is folded with extra flour on the bench until it can be handled, broken into pieces and folded into firm balls, and each ball has a hole poked through the middle and stretched open before it goes into the hot oil. Recipes are handed down in families, and the women of the house make them by the dozen for a feast.
They walk a line between sweet and savoury. People eat them plain, warm or cold, dunked in a cup of tea, and some even dip them into seafood chowder.
Saved recipes and passport stamps are kept on this device. Sign in to keep them across your devices and leave reviews.
Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and nut- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 22
- 3 cups warm water
- 2 1/2 tbsp active dry yeast
- 1 kg plain flour, plus 2 to 3 cups (300 to 450 g) extra for shaping
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cup warm milk
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil (for the dough)
- 3 eggs
- about 3 l vegetable oil, for deep frying
Instructions
- 1Whisk the yeast into the warm water and leave for 5 minutes until frothy. In a large bowl mix the 1 kg flour and the sugar and make a well in the middle.
- 2Whisk the warm milk, oil and eggs into the yeast mixture and pour it into the well. Mix with your hand, squeezing the dough through your fingers, until smooth. It will be very sticky. Cover and leave in a warm place for 60 to 90 minutes, until doubled.
- 3Spread the extra flour over a large patch of the bench and tip the dough onto it. Working round the edge, lift the floured sides and fold them into the middle, again and again, until the dough has taken up enough flour to be soft but manageable.✎ Chef’s noteAdd the flour only by folding. Kneading it in makes heavy doughnuts.
- 4Break off pieces about the size of a golf ball, or measure them with a 5 cm cutter. Fold the edges of each piece into the centre, press between your palms into a firm round and set on a floured tray.
- 5Heat the oil in a large heavy pot over medium heat for about 15 minutes, to about 170C (340F). A scrap of dough dropped in should rise and brown steadily.
- 6Push a finger through the middle of each ball and stretch the hole to about 3 cm. Fry a few at a time for about 3 minutes, turning, until deep golden all over. Drain on a rack and eat warm or cold, with tea.✎ Chef’s noteKeep the heat at medium. Oil that is too hot browns the outside before the thick middle is cooked.
Cook Islands family and feast tradition.
Ratings & reviews
Cooked it? Rate this dish:
No account needed. Sign in to leave a full review with a comment.
Cooked it?
Kept on this device, no account needed. Sign in to leave a review and keep your passport across your devices.
No reviews yet, be the first to cook it.
🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Rarotonga. Rarotonga is the main Cook Island, where ika mata cures raw reef fish in citrus before drowning it in fresh coconut cream. Taro, breadfruit, and pork cooked in the umu earth oven fill the Sunday table after church.
🗺️
Cook Islands. An umukai is the whole occasion rather than the oven. Stones are heated in a pit, food wrapped in leaves is layered over them, and the pit is covered and left for hours while everyone waits; taro, breadfruit, pork and chicken come out together. Rukau, taro leaves cooked in coconut cream, is the green that goes with it.
🌍
Oceania. The staple crops here were carried on purpose. Lapita voyagers moving east from roughly three thousand years ago brought taro, yam, banana, breadfruit and coconut with them along with pigs and chickens, because most of the islands they settled had almost nothing edible growing on them. The earth oven travelled too, as umu, imu, hangi, lovo, mumu, motu and um.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Cook Islands
Ika MataRaw fish cured in lime and bathed in fresh coconut cream with cucumber, tomato, and spring onion.
Cook Islands PokeCooked ripe banana bound with arrowroot and baked until translucent, drowned in thick coconut cream, eaten at breakfast, at teatime, or alongside the main meal.
Curried SausagesBrowned sausages simmered in a mild curry-and-coconut gravy over rice, a Rarotongan family lunch.
Browse all Cook Islands recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Pot or saucepan, Whisk.
Storing it: Fried food is best eaten fresh while crisp. Re-crisp leftovers in a hot oven or air fryer; the microwave makes them soft.
Make it a Cook Islands meal
Tumunu (Bush Beer)Drink
Pawpaw PokeDessert
Similar dishes from around the world
Kabab Bahraini (Bahraini Chickpea Flour Fritters)Bahrain
Tsybryki (Belarusian Fried Potato and Cheese Balls)Belarus
Klui-Klui (Beninese Peanut Sticks)Benin
Baya Kyaw (Burmese Split Pea Fritters)Myanmar
Mariquitas (Cuban Green Plantain Chips with Mojo)Cuba
Empanadas de Viento (Ecuadorian Fried Cheese Empanadas)Ecuador
Frequently asked questions
What is Cook Islands Doughnuts?
Big, dense, sweet yeast doughnuts shaped by hand into rings and deep-fried golden, eaten plain and dunked in tea at every Cook Islands gathering.
Where does Cook Islands Doughnuts come from?
Cook Islands Doughnuts is a Cook Islands dish from Rarotonga, Cook Islands.
Can Cook Islands Doughnuts be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Cook Islands Doughnuts recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions. Treat the substitutions as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Cook Islands Doughnuts safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we still count coconut as a tree nut to be cautious, although the FDA stopped listing it as one in 2025), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Cook Islands Doughnuts take to make?
About 2 h 40 min in all: 30 minutes prep and 40 minutes cooking, plus 1 h 30 min of hands-off waiting the method needs, serving 22.
Get the Sunday Spin
One dish from somewhere in the world, in your inbox every Sunday. No spam, just dinner inspiration you can cook that day.