Although they look like a jelly donut, the Polish treat* is made from a very rich dough that contains eggs, fat, sugar and (sometimes) milk. A small amount of grain alcohol is added to the dough to prevent the oil from soaking in when it's deep fried. While certainly denser than a traditional donut, the influence of French chefs during the reign of Poland's August III made the dough much lighter than it reads in print.
Inside the paczki a fruit filling - prune, raspberry, apple, lemon, cream, etc - and the outside is sprinkled with sugar or iced.
This morning I stopped at the neighborhood bakery - an Italian one, but Milwaukee-fied enough to promote paczki's. I picked up two dozen, with 18 of those being shipped off to my parent's apartment.
Enjoy your Fat Tuesday!
* (pronounced PAWNCH-kee or PONCH-kee but some speakers pronounce the word as POONCH-kee, PUNCH-kee or PANCH-kee)
