PÄ…czki (Polish Doughnuts)
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Loading... - Alicia Williams
- 28 Mar 2022
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PÄ…czki are a classic Polish dessert usually made on Fat Thursday but also eaten all year round. These deep-fried fluffy yeast doughnuts are filled with jam (or with other delicious fillings) and glazed with icing or dusted with powdered sugar. It’s hard to eat just one!
What are pÄ…czki
Paczki are deep-fried yeast-based round pieces of dough that are filled with different types of fillings and glazed with icing or dusted with powdered sugar.
In Poland, pÄ…czki are eaten especially on Fat Thursday (TÅ‚usty Czwartek, and yes Thursday not Tuesday!), the last Thursday prior to Ash Wednesday, and the beginning of Lent. It’s a moveable feast and usually falls between the 4th-28th of February. In 2022 it will be celebrated on the 24th of February. Fat Tuesday / Paczki Day in the US / Mardi Gras falls on the 1st of March in 2022.
The traditional reason for making paczki was to use up all the lard, sugar, butter, eggs, and fruit in the house because their consumption was forbidden by the Catholic church during the season of Lent. Traditionally, Lent was 40 days of fasting, meaning one meal a day and full fasting on Friday. Any rich foods were not allowed. The tradition of eating paczki is known since the XVI century.
Pronunciation: you can hear here how to pronounce pÄ…czki. PÄ…czki is already plural and singular is one pÄ…czek.
What is the difference between paczki and American donuts?
Besides the lack of the hole in the middle, the paczki dough is more rich, especially in egg yolks. Many Polish recipes call for many egg yolks (even 8 egg yolks for 500g of flour), you rarely see recipes that call for whole eggs only. What’s also unique about Polish paczki are their fillings and toppings.
Signs of great paczki: bright stripe around paczki (it means that the dough has properly risen), they must be light, airy, and delicate.
Paczki calories: yes, paczki are deep-fried and when you see all that oil in the pot you may think that paczki have an enormous amount of calories but when fried properly they don’t soak up lots of oil. The number of calories will depend on the filling and glaze but in this particular recipe (jelly-filled paczki), 1 paczek has 435 calories.
Types of paczki
The most popular type of paczki that you will see in every bakery/grocery store on Fat Thursday are paczki that are filled with wild rose jam, glazed with icing, and topped with chopped candied orange peel. They are called “pÄ…czki z różą”.
Other than that, there are SO MANY kinds of paczki filled with so many different types of fillings.
§ The most popular filling is jam filling (this is usually a thick jam or marmalade): wild rose jam, strawberry jam, raspberry jam, apricot jam, plum jam.
§ Other popular fillings: vanilla pudding, eggnog cream, dulche de leche cream (kajmak), nutella/chocolate pudding, apple pie filling.
§ Paczki with no filling are rarely seen, with the exception of tiny mini paczki. You also don’t really see paczki that are coated in granulated sugar.
§ Glaze for paczki: most popular is icing or dusting with powdered sugar. Chocolate glaze is also popular.
§ Paczki toppings: most popular is chopped candied orange peel. Other: chopped nuts or shredded coconut.
§ Variations on paczki dough: there is dough made with mashed potatoes or with beer!
§ MY ABSOLUTE FAVORITE PACZKI: are filled with vanilla pudding and glazed with chocolate ganache – there are no better paczki than these. When you think about it these are identical to boston cream donuts that are popular in the US but the paczki with vanilla cream and chocolate glaze that I have been eating all my childhood in Poland have always had a long oval shape (not sure why).
Ingredients
Here’s what you need to make delicious Polish doughnuts:
§ In Poland, fresh yeast is most often used, they can be found in every grocery store. Yeast dough made with fresh yeast is rising faster but the yeast flavor is more pronounced. I used instant yeast for this recipe.
§ Paczki dough is known for the use of many egg yolks, I used only 3 and I think it’s enough but you can use more (or less) if you wish. The dough made with more egg yolks will need more time to rise.
§ Brandy/rum is optional – it adds flavor and helps the dough to not soak up fat (it’s not that important if you’re checking the temperature of the oil with a thermometer).
§ You can use a different kind of filling for this recipe: any kind of jam that you like, any cream that you like (eg pastry cream), vanilla or chocolate pudding, nutella.
§ Glaze: dust the paczki with powdered sugar or make icing: just stir powdered sugar with liquid (milk or water or water+lemon juice) until thick but pourable. For 1 cup of powdered sugar (120g) add about 1 teaspoon of water and 1 teaspoon of lemon juice.
§ Oil for frying: use high-smoke point vegetable oil (suitable for frying in high temperatures) such as canola oil or refined coconut oil.
§ You may notice that there is only a small amount of sugar in the dough (resist the urge to add more!). More sugar in the paczki dough will cause that the dough will brown too quickly while frying which can cause that your paczek will have raw dough in the middle. Paczki are sweeten mainly with sweet filling and sweet glaze.
§ From leftover egg whites you can make Polish cookies kokosanki (coconut macaroons).
Regular readers may notice that this recipe is very similar to German donuts (Krapfen) – this is true, all types of donuts in the German-speaking countries, Poland, Ukraine (and other neighboring countries), are very similar. You can also use this Krapfen recipe to make paczki if you prefer it. What distinguishes Krapfen from paczki is just the filling (for Krapfen, apricot jam is more traditional while for paczki it’s rose or plum jam), and toppings (Krapfen are usually dusted with powdered sugar while paczki are most often glazed with icing).
How to measure flour
In the recipe card at the end of the post, I provided all possible measurements for paczki – by volume and by weight. I’m always using a kitchen scale to make paczki (and generally to develop the recipes on my website). If you’re weighing your ingredients on a scale your results will be very consistent and the same as mine. It’s really easier, quicker (you don’t have to clean all the measuring cups), and a kitchen scale is super cheap!
You can measure all the ingredients for this recipe using measuring cups but I would recommend weighing flour.
Measuring the flour with measuring cups is unfortunately very inaccurate. 1 US cup of flour can weigh from 120g-140g, depending on how you’re filling your cup (1 US cup is 240ml, a European cup is 250ml). 20g is a little over 2 tablespoons of flour, so when this recipe calls for 4 cups of flour, you could have added 8 tablespoons more flour which is 1/2 cup! This will result in dry and chewy paczki. Check the consistency of the dough – it should be soft and rather loose, it should not be dense.
If you’d like to measure flour with cups you need to:
§ Fluff the flour by stirring it in the bag/flour container with a spoon.
§ Spoon the flour and sprinkle it into your measuring cup.
§ Sweep off the excess flour with the back of a knife.
How to make paczki step by step
STEP 1: Add butter into a medium saucepan and heat until melted. Add the cold milk, sugar, and vanilla extract to the pot, stir until combined, then take the pot off the heat. Pour the mixture into a medium bowl, make sure the temperature of the liquid is between 100-110°F (38-43°C) (pleasantly warm to your finger) then stir in the yeast (adding yeast into a warm liquid will make them rise faster). After about 1-2 minutes you should see the yeast is starting to ‘bloom’ (will be frothy/foamy). You can omit this step and simply combine all the ingredients together in a bowl when using fast-acting instant yeast.
STEP 2: Add lightly beaten egg, egg yolks, brandy/rum, salt, and flour into a large bowl.
STEP 3: Add the yeast mixture.
STEP 4: Stir with a spoon until roughly combined.
