In Italy, they are called many different things depending on the region: bombolini fritti, ficattole, bignoli, frittoli/fritole/fritule, sgabei, bignet, panzanelle, coccoli, zonzelle, donzelle, etc.

[1] In the region of Istria, which is shared by the countries of Italy, Croatia and Slovenia, a variation of this dish is called fritole, fritule and blinci.

[2] Also, in Ghana, West Africa, they are known locally as bofrot or bofflot, and in the south of Benin, in the Fon language as yovodocon, i.e. 'white man's dumplings'.

The dough is made from flour, eggs, yeast, salt, milk, baking powder and usually sultanas, currants, raisins and sometimes zest or succade (candied fruit).

The filling of the oliebol could consist of raisins, currants and apple, other ingredients can be added, such as succade, pieces of orange or whipped cream.

[5] The earliest discovered recipe of oliekoecken ("oil cookies", the direct precursor of the oliebol) came from the 1667 Dutch book De verstandige kock "The sensible cook".

From 1993 to 2017 Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad held an annual highly publicized oliebollentest at the end of each year.

[8] In 2013 Richard Visser won the test for the ninth time in twenty years which is currently the record for the highest number of wins by one person.

[9] The test stopped in 2018 after it appeared that the jury and the writers of the reviews were not the same people and the articles in the newspaper didn't reflect the reality and were exaggerated.