Every ethnic group has its splurge food for Fat Tuesday, also known as Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras.
Lithuanians feast on doughnuts known as spurgos, while Ukrainians devour nalysnyky, crepe-like pancakes. Serbians and Croatians call their Fat Tuesday pancakes palachinke and their bismarcks krofne.Poles love their paczki, which literally means "packages" for Paczki Day. They're fried rounds of yeast dough that can be filled with prune, apricot, strawberry, raspberry paste or cheese filling, or left unfilled. My busia made them without filling and dusted them with granulated sugar.
Makes about 2 dozen Polish Paczki
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 6 minutes
Ingredients:
- 1 package active dry yeast
- 1/4 cup warm water
- 1/3 cup (5 1/3 tablespoons) butter, softened
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 1 whole egg
- 3 egg yolks
- 1 tablespoon brandy
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 gallon oil for deep frying
- Granulated sugar (optional)
- Confectioner's sugar (optional)
- Fruit paste for filling (optional)
Preparation:
- Dissolve yeast in warm water and set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in whole egg, then egg yolks one at a time.
- Add brandy, dissolved yeast and salt. Beat until well mixed.
- If using a stand mixer, switch to the dough hook attachment and add flour gradually to make a stiff dough. Knead on low speed until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. If kneading by hand, knead for about 10 minutes.
- Place dough in a greased bowl. Cover and let rise until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour, or follow this Quick Tip to cut the rise time.
- Turn dough out onto lightly floured surface. Pat or roll to 1/2-inch thickness. Cut rounds with 3-inch biscuit cutter. Remove scraps and re-roll and re-cut. Cover and let rounds rise until doubled in bulk, 30 minutes or longer.
- Heat oil to 375 degrees in large pot or Dutch oven. Fry paczki a few at a time 2 to 3 minutes or until bottom is golden brown. Flip them over and fry another 1 to 2 minutes or until golden brown.
- Drain paczki on paper towels and sprinkle with granulated sugar while still warm.
Note: You can poke a hole in the side of the paczki and, using a pastry bag squeeze in a dollop of the filling of choice. Then dust filled paczki with granulated sugar, confectioners' sugar or glaze.
- Paczki don't keep well, so gobble them up the same day you make them or freeze.
