Paczki-Palooza!

To continue on with Paczki-Palooza, we got to fry and fill our own packzi. Paczki are traditional Polish doughnuts The fillings included plum butter, rose petal jelly (a traditional filling made with fried rose petals), raspberry, blueberry, custard & “boozy” custard.

Traditionally, the reason for making paczki has been to use up all the lard, sugar & fruit in the house, which are given up during the religious season of Lent. Paczkis are eaten especially on Fat Thursday, the last Thursday before Lent… but over the years, it had been a treat eaten on Fat Tuesday. Here are pics of the Paczki making event:

Paczki dough that has finished proofing:
The glorious globes bobbing in the hot oil:They’re turned twice until a golden brown color is reached:
Hot finished paczkis, straight out of the fryer to cool:Not quite perfect paczkis… see the difference?The fun jelly filler machines that contain flavors such as
plum jelly, rose petal jelly, raspberry, blueberry, apricot & custard:
Colleen was brave enough to tackle the filling machine:Filled Packzis!We also filled cooled paczki with “boozy” custard.
The custard has some alcohol mixed in to cut the sweetness.
For these, the packzi has to be filled by hand
My favorite filling of them all is the
fresh strawberry & whipped cream paczkis.
Chef Dobra uses fresh strawberries,
mixed into a strawberry gel and whipped cream.
The paczkis are sliced in half,
given a ring of whipped cream on the edges
and fresh strawberry filling is placed in the center
before topping it with the second half.
To finish them strawberry & cream paczkis off,
a nice dusting of powdered sugar sweetens the deal…
done by Stacey:
Here’s my box of paczki I took home…
Happy Fat Tuesday!