Dictionaries of the Scots Language
Dictionars o the Scots Leid

Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)

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First published 1952 (SND Vol. III). Includes material from the 2005 supplement.
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.

CRULLA, n. Found only in comb. Aberdeen crulla, a kind of doughnut (Edn. 1829 Mrs. Dalgairns Practice of Cookery 284).Sc. 1935 Victor McClure Scotland's Inner Man 131:
Miss MacNeill [quoting Mrs Dalgairns] seems to limit this fried paste to Aberdeen. The writer first met it in Peterhead, truly enough, but he has also had it better elsewhere in Scotland. It is a paste of flour, butter, sugar and eggs, cut into strips, plaited together or curled, and fried to a light brown in clarified lard. They are drained and served on a napkin, with or without sugar. Jamieson gives "crule" as a small cake or bannock, deriving it from kril Gaelic [sic]. But Chambers, for example, derives "cruller" from the Dutch krullen, to curl, and a "cruller" is the same thing as an Aberdeen crulla. Crullers are popular in America, and the probability is that they were introduced there by Dutch settlers. They may have come to the east coast of Scotland from the Low Countries.