Honeywheat, which are horribly mis-named. They are cake, with the ultimate cake donut crust, similar to but better than buttermilk bars. The flavor is nothing like what one would think of when hearing “honeywheat”, perhaps more like a spice donut. And the name makes me mad because I think that’s why they are so hard to find, people don’t find the idea of “honeywheat” that enticing so they don’t even try them.
Until they all died or went to the nursing home, the church basement ladies made donuts about twice a year. They were wonderful. For a couple bucks you could get a dozen fresh one in a brown paper bag – plain or sugar dusted. Grease stains on the bag. Crunchy and crisp on the outside, warm cake texture on the inside. The only trouble was that you had to eat them while they were still warm. Once they cooled they sat in your stomach like a twelve pounder shot. The ladies called them floaters.
I was in Yachats twenty years ago with my parents. I remember the town with fondness, and I’ve always wanted to go back. If I ever make it, I’ll look into the doughnuts. 
If this statement is true, then I have no idea what you mean by “cake.” I’ve never seen anything that I’d call a “raised donut” at Dunkin.
Krispy Kreme opened a few stores here on Long Island, but they all closed after a couple of years. We’re cake donut country, and there’s always a Dunkin Donuts within walking distance.
They also made cake donuts. In fact, my dad much preferred cake so when he brought home a box it always had a couple plain cake and sugared cake donuts in addition to the raised that all us kids wanted.
Raised means the dough uses yeast while I believe cake uses baking powder or baking soda. Dunkin Donuts has both.
I don’t really like doughnuts, but if I am exceedingly hungry and bagels* are not available and there are only doughnuts and if the doughnuts are fresh and if there is a choice between cake and raised, I choose cake. Minimal icing and light sprinkles. Chocolate or cider; never caramel or any kind of fruit.
*No jelly, dammit.
This is correct.
Here’s a Dunkin Donuts cake donut.
Here’s a yeast-raised one.
Or here’s the plain glazed one.
The difference is the method of leavening. A cake donut, being leavened with chemical leavening (baking powder) has a much tighter, smaller, more uniform bubble structure. It has the consistency of, well, cake.
A raised donut is made with yeast, which makes it more bread-like than cake-like. By that, I mean the air bubbles made by the yeast are not uniform, they tend to be bigger, and the texture of the final product is a bit lighter and fluffier, more like that of a freshly-made baguette (without the crust of one) than of cake. It’s more springy, so when you compress it, it kind of spring back into its original shape (or tries to), while a cake donut crumbles. Actually, that’s a useful distinction: a yeast donut you generally have to tear to divide into two, while a cake donut will usually easily break in half if you try to fold it into two.
The only cake doughnuts I’ve ever eaten are the white powdered ones at the convenience stores. Not very good at all.
The best donuts are made with potato flour. imho
I agree. I can’t stand overly sweetened doughnuts. I really don’t like glaze. Frosting is OK in moderation.
Amazing I’ve gone almost 50 years without even realizing that there was a distinction, or a difference. And I’m wondering at this point why it even matters. 
What’s there to be confused about? They taste and feel different. One is dense and chewy; the other is light and fluffy. Some prefer one to the other; others don’t care. It’s like the difference between, say, Irish soda bread and a French baguette.
Just personal preference.
It’s a somewhat subtle stylistic difference in the vein of Coke vs Pepsi or Pat’s vs. Geno’s; some greatly prefer one over the other, others can’t even tell the difference.
Doughnuts. Much better than those “doo-nut” things.
Cake doughnuts are best, nicely glazed and no more.
I can only assume that you don’t actually eat donuts. Or that you’ve only ever eaten one stule or the other; it’s impossible to believe that you could have eaten both and not realized that one is like a muffin or cake and the other is like bread.
I still remember the first time I discovered cake donuts, and how amazing they were. But only if the cake is really crumbly. Those little powdered donuts aren’t fluffy enough.
I thought that “raised” referred to the puffy Krispy Kreme type of donut, which I’ve never seen at DD. So what’s the term for the KK-style donut?
That is a raised donut. Dunkin Donuts has raised donuts as well. See the picture links above (particularly, the third one that has the raised DD glazed donut.) The DD version isn’t as light and cottony as KK’s, but it is raised, too, and quite different than the cake version.
Huh. I guess I just never ordered one of those, so I didn’t know they made raised.
This begs the question: Was the first donut a cake or raised donut? And was it spelled donut or doughnut?