>>211876554 (OP)Like everyone else who’s posted so far, we don’t really have a unique type of donut—they’re all based on the same more-or-less universal style that can be found elsewhere.
There’s a pretentious little artisanal donut shop in my city that’s run by a Swiss/English couple that makes surprisingly delicious donuts that are somehow vegan—I think most vegan attempts at pastry taste like pencil erasers and paste, and wouldn’t choose any of them on purpose, but I didn’t even know these were vegan until after I’d eaten one. They do some basics like cinnamon and sugar, and a good salted caramel thing.
Are donuts an American invention? Never thought about it. Our branches of Dunkin’ do a bunch of over-the-top “special” donuts with distinctively European bits and pieces, like gluing macarons or Biscoff cookies or chunks of Kinder Bueno candy bars to the tops of them, but they’re pretty much all disgusting gimmicks for children with pushover parents, and they cost like $7 or $8 apiece. Blech.
We do have one donut-like pastry that I think is unique to Switzerland, and which I would sooner eat than most donuts, the pic rel Quarkini. It’s a simple sort of sugar donut hole made with Quark (technically a cheese, but similar to yogurt, very high in protein) in the dough.