Experiments are described in which a 2-mm-diameter cylindrical pellet of solid hydrogen is injected at low velocity to the centre of the upper half of the Doublet III tokamak, immediately before initiation of the plasma discharge. The pellet ablates in 6–9 ms and increases the initial plasma density by a factor of 2 to 3. The profiles of both electron density and current density of discharges initiated with a pellet are very flat compared to normally initiated discharges, and lower electron temperatures and lower impurity levels persist for hundreds of milliseconds. The resultant dee-shaped plasmas have height-to-width ratios of up to 1.8 on axis and 2.0 on the outermost flux surface, and are suitable targets for neutral-beam or electron cyclotron heating.