Which 1803 cookbook possibly first used the near-conventional spelling “dough nuts”?

The 1803 cookbook possibly responsible for the first near-conventional “dough nuts” spelling was The Frugal Housewife: Or, Complete Woman Cook.

The relevant edition was associated with Susannah Carter’s cookbook and included an appendix of recipes adapted to American cooking. Its “Dough Nuts” recipe combines flour, butter, sugar, and yeast, then calls for the dough to be raised, shaped, and fried in hog’s lard.

The wording was not yet the modern solid “doughnut.” Earlier records used forms such as “nuts” for fried dough pieces and “dow nuts” around 1800. The 1803 title is therefore usually described cautiously as possibly the first cookbook using the near-standard spelling, rather than as an absolutely undisputed first.

Washington Irving helped popularize the term in literary culture in 1809, describing fried sweet dough called dough-nuts or olykoeks. The spelling later developed into both “doughnut” and the shorter American “donut.”