Paczki!!!

[Enzo]

I almost missed them this year. Every year in the couple weeks before Lent, the Polish community makes these traditional things like rich filled donuts called paczkis. Pronounced POONCH-key. Very much like a jelly donut or maybe an eclair, rich and sweet, and full of some sort of sweet goo. I love them so. We have a large POlish population in Michigan and the Great Lakes area

Today was Fat Tuesday - Mardi Gras - or Shrove Tuesday, the last day before Lent. So tomorrow the bakeries will stop making them for another year. Easter is early this year and I was not thinking about it, plus all the Super Tuesday BS distracted me. I only just got my first one today. the wife picked some up for me at home, but I grabbed one from the dairy store after dinner this evening.

The dough is a little sweeter and richer than standard donut dough, and the filling comes in many flavors. My fave is prune - hey I'm an old guy. But they also come in both Creme and Custard, apple, blueberry, raspberry, lemon (yum), strawberry, chocolate, ricotta even (though I don't think that is very traditional), cherry, banana, and who knows what all.

Some are glazed, some are powdered, some are sugared, and some are now gone.





Paczki is plural, Paczek is singular (pronounced POHN-check), but why would anyone just want ONE?

[Lance]

Today was Fat Tuesday - Mardi Gras - or Shrove Tuesday

plus all the Super Tuesday

Yeah, yesterday was Super Fat Tuesday.

Those things look yummy.

[Blue Monster 65]

The dough is a little sweeter and richer than standard donut dough

Which is exactly why I don't like them that much. That said, I have a friend whose elderly mother still makes them at home every year. Those I can eat!

Woof! - Scott

[Arneb]

These look a lot like Krapfen or Berliner (didn't we have that subject already?),
also eaten here for carnival.

[Squee]

^Carnival is fuunnnn!^

And maybe you guys don't get to have them anymore, but since my grandparents on BOTH sides are straight polish and their parents were off the boats, my family has the recepie and my mom and I have been making them all week so far and we are going to my grandparent's this weekend to make more. But this week is the only time we ever make them.

And REAL paczkis do NOT have filling, they are just fried and rolled in sugar and cinnimon. And store bought has nothing on the real thing. Trust me, nothing beats a fresh hot paczki.

[Enzo]

Well that goes for most things. Meatloaf never tastes as good in a restaurant as from my mom's oven.

How about those kruschiki, krushchyki, whatever they are called. More or less pieces of light sort of pie crust baked and sprinkled with powdered sugar. "ANgel wings."

I love peirogies. Hell, I even like kishka. HAve a tasty bite for me while you are at it cooking those things.

The store bought paczkis are OK, but the ones from the Roma bakery are pretty tasty. Down in the Hamtramk section of Detroit - the POlish section - there are some bakeries there that have lines forming at the door by 4AM of folks wanting the things.


Germans maybe something like Faschnachts or something like that? That make any sense?

[Мастер]

Germans maybe something like Faschnachts or something like that? That make any sense?

Fastnacht? My impression is that that's more of a German-American thing. Maybe Arneb can confirm or correct.

[KLA2]

^Carnival is fuunnnn!^

And maybe you guys don't get to have them anymore, but since my grandparents on BOTH sides are straight polish and their parents were off the boats, my family has the recepie and my mom and I have been making them all week so far and we are going to my grandparent's this weekend to make more. But this week is the only time we ever make them.

And REAL paczkis do NOT have filling, they are just fried and rolled in sugar and cinnimon. And store bought has nothing on the real thing. Trust me, nothing beats a fresh hot paczki.

What are you doing with them all?

[Squee]

^Carnival is fuunnnn!^

And maybe you guys don't get to have them anymore, but since my grandparents on BOTH sides are straight polish and their parents were off the boats, my family has the recepie and my mom and I have been making them all week so far and we are going to my grandparent's this weekend to make more. But this week is the only time we ever make them.

And REAL paczkis do NOT have filling, they are just fried and rolled in sugar and cinnimon. And store bought has nothing on the real thing. Trust me, nothing beats a fresh hot paczki.

What are you doing with them all?

Giving them to family. My brother came home yesterday and we sent like 10 home with him today.
Plus you know, eating them ourselves. =]