Feb 16, 2015

Happy Pączki Day – Fat Tuesday

Polish Jelly Doughnuts

Tuesday, February 17th is Pączki Day!  It’s a day celebrated by most Poles by eating as many pączki as you can in preparation for the following day, Ash Wednesday, the traditional start of Lent, when many Catholics start fasting until Good Friday. So if you’re going to binge on pączki today, why not keep it healthy and bake them? My recipe is easy and you can fill them with custard or jam… I even fill some with my chocolate pudding recipe. (a single pączki is called a pączek.)

Best Oven Baked Paczki

So Happy Pączki Day, everyone. And Szczęśliwa Pączki Dziennie to my Polish friends!  Oh, and Happy Fat Tuesday to everyone in New Orleans. That’s about the happiest place to be today. Click here for the recipe. – Jenny Jones

6 Comments on "Happy Pączki Day – Fat Tuesday"

  1. Joyce Beczkowki

    Finally at age 71 on this day before Fat Tuesday, I successfully made Paczki thanks to your wonderful video and recipe. Polish Proud! Dziekuje.

  2. Bridget

    Hi Jenny
    I’m new at baking but I did bake a few of your recipes and I like your videos very much! You are a good teacher.
    I just made the paczki jelly donuts. They look beautiful and smell beautiful. They taste OK but my dough is heavy or thicker than what I’d get in a bakery. Is that normal? Yours look nice and airy in your picture.
    I aerated my flour and used fast acting yeast, fresh, not expired, which I keep in the freezer. I made sure my ingredients were at room temperature and that my liquids, the milk, was at 120°. The only part I wasn’t so sure about was how long, about how many minutes, to mix the ingredients in the mixer after you add the additional flour…I mixed about 5 or 6 minutes… Also when I was trying to kneed it 50 times the dough was very sticky so I had to be generous with the flower in order to work it.
    Can you advise me? I would like the donut to be a lot lighter and I’m not sure what to do to get it that way.
    Thank you Very muchfor any help you can give me .

    • Jenny Can Cook

      You did almost everything right but in step #4, it says to stir in the additional flour so that generally means just to stir it in. Any time it requires “mixing” for an extended time I would be sure to indicate that, so the stirring should take about 30 seconds. If your dough wound up too thick & heavy, it’s likely from adding too much flour when kneading. I hope that helps.

  3. Russ S

    I would fight for these. I wish Jenny was my sister!

  4. elzbieta with Poland/Lodz/

    Hi Jenny ! Sorry, but J can,t very well englishe. J did You paczki and J very like it. In Poland ofen fray pączki in deep oil, but J prefe You paczki and why J fonded You Blog

    greet You Elzbieta/Eizabeth/ from Poland

    • Jenny

      Elzbieta, your English is clear and thank you for writing. My sister’s name is also Elzbieta. We also called her Elzuna. Dziękuję.

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