Tomorrow is Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash WeWednesday. I’m sure that most of you dear readers know about the partying and weeks of decadence that lead up to the church holiday. While Kitchenwyche isall for earning my beads (wink, wink), my eastern european heritage has another tradition:  Pączki.
  What exactly is a  Pączki? Well, it’s a really big, overstuffed jelly doughnut. Ash Wednesday starts the Lenten season. If you are Catholic (and many other types of Christian), this means a period of fasting, penance and sacrifice to prepare for the death of the Christ.
 While today the church is alot more lenient with dietary restrictions, it wasn’t always so. Making Pączki  was a way to use up all the fays and sweets that were forbidden to be eaten during lent.
 I have a yearly ritual of getting up at 5:00am and huffing it to the east side of Buffalo to get these tasty treats. I haven’t a clue how many calories are in them, but if their actual weight (@1/4lb each!!!!) is any indicator, you’ll need all the days between now and Ostara to work them off!

  For those of you who are truly traditional, here is Aunt Hattie’s Pączki recipe. Feel free to make it your own and use any type of jam or jelly, but raspberry is the most traditional. Raspberries grow pretty much anywhere. Even the poorest citizen can find them in a field. It didn’t (and doesn’t!) take much to turn them into a royal treat of homemade jam. I will warn you ahead of time, this recipe makes ALOT of doughnuts: @ 4 dozen. You can guess why I don’t make it that often. I have tried unsuccessfully to reduce the recipe in size, but it just hasn’t worked out. Results were inconsistent. Since you will have so much dough, most household stand mixers won’t accommodate this batch. My own 12 qt mixing bowl barely holds it, and I use that for hand mixing. My suggestion is to make them for a party or bake sale. 5am looks better every time is go to make them!!!!

Sponge
  In a large bowl, dissolve 3/4 oz of yeast in 1/4c of warm water. Add to this 1/2 qt of room temp milk and 3 c flour. Let this sit at room temp until bubbly, about 1/2 hr.
  While your sponge is bubbling away, in another bowl combine:
  1/2 quart warm milk
1/4 lb butter
2 tbsp shortening
1/2 c sugar
2 tbsp whiskey

Mix these ingredients into the sponge. Add to it:
6 large eggs
1/2 tsp salt
9 c flour
2 tbsp shortening
1/2 c sugar

    With a wooden spoon, mix everything together until you have a smooth dough. Your arm is pretty much going to feel going to fall off LOL! Cover bowl with plastic wrap (Aunt Hattie used a towel) and let the dough rise until it id doubled in size. Then, pull off pieces about the size of a small apple (golf ball) and roll into balls. Feel free to use more flour to keep the dough from being sticky.  
    Place the balls on a well oiled cookie sheet and let rise until doubled in size. This will take @ 1/2- 3/4 hr.
    When risen, fry the dough balls in a deep pan filled with “lard” (vegetable shortening is a good choice). They should be light to golden brown on both sides.
    Drain on paper towels or a brown paper grocery bag. When they are cool enough to handle, use a pastry bag to fill them with raspberry jelly.
    Eat them as they are or roll them in some granulated or powdered sugar. Glaze is also nice drizzled on them, but quite messy. 

  ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tags: fat tues, lent, paczki recipe