Exploding the Paczki Population
I'd been planning to make paczki this past weekend. I'd already made custard filling and strawberry filling. But then life happened, and I wasn't able to.
Tuesday, however, we had an ice storm and school was canceled--the perfect chance for paczki!
If you've never heard of them, paczki are filled doughnuts popularized in Poland and among Michigan's Polish population. They're designed to clear the kitchen of eggs and sugar and other goodies just before Lent. You don't find them anywhere, not in bakeries or in homes, until we get close to Fat Tuesday, and in Michigan they're a Big Thing. I've eaten lots of them over the years, but never made them. This year, I wanted to try it.
Recipes for paczki abound on the Internet, but they're all much the same--an egg-heavy, very soft bread dough with a little extra sugar. I chose a version that looked good to me and set about making the dough. I used my dough hook instead of my bread maker.
The dough seemed right after I let it rise. Yay! It rolled out well, and I cut it into rounds. While they were rising again, I filled my deep fryer. Most recipes assume you'll fry paczki on the stove, but I can never keep the oil at the right temperature for stove top deep frying, and what do I have a fryer for anyway?
When everything was ready, I slid a set of rounds into the oil. They browned and puffed, and I fished them out for the next batch. I had a great pile of them when they were done. They cooled, and I set to filling them with a pastry bag. The recipe said to just jam the tip into the doughnut and fill it, but I quickly discovered this didn't work--the filling didn't go anywhere. So I inserted a chopstick and made a hollow for the filling. This worked out much better.
They're delicious! Now we just have to figure out who's going to eat them all!
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Tuesday, however, we had an ice storm and school was canceled--the perfect chance for paczki!
If you've never heard of them, paczki are filled doughnuts popularized in Poland and among Michigan's Polish population. They're designed to clear the kitchen of eggs and sugar and other goodies just before Lent. You don't find them anywhere, not in bakeries or in homes, until we get close to Fat Tuesday, and in Michigan they're a Big Thing. I've eaten lots of them over the years, but never made them. This year, I wanted to try it.
Recipes for paczki abound on the Internet, but they're all much the same--an egg-heavy, very soft bread dough with a little extra sugar. I chose a version that looked good to me and set about making the dough. I used my dough hook instead of my bread maker.
The dough seemed right after I let it rise. Yay! It rolled out well, and I cut it into rounds. While they were rising again, I filled my deep fryer. Most recipes assume you'll fry paczki on the stove, but I can never keep the oil at the right temperature for stove top deep frying, and what do I have a fryer for anyway?
When everything was ready, I slid a set of rounds into the oil. They browned and puffed, and I fished them out for the next batch. I had a great pile of them when they were done. They cooled, and I set to filling them with a pastry bag. The recipe said to just jam the tip into the doughnut and fill it, but I quickly discovered this didn't work--the filling didn't go anywhere. So I inserted a chopstick and made a hollow for the filling. This worked out much better.
They're delicious! Now we just have to figure out who's going to eat them all!
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