Pączki

Tym razem napiszę o pączkach, które w tamtym roku robiłam ze dwa razy, w tym raz oczywiście na Tłusty Czwartek. Żeby nie było tak jak zwykle, będzie po angielsku.

Pączki

The polish traditional cookies, eaten all year round, but there is a tradition to eat a lot (I mean:
A LOT) of them especially at the last thursday of carnival, before the large fast time before Easter.
In foreign countries, where there is a lot of Polish people living there (like in Chicago), that day
is even called „Paczki day”. In Poland that day is „Tłusty Czwartek” (Fat Thursday). Yes, you
can became fat, if you'll eat a lot of pączki's :)

The tradition of making this kind of cookies evolved from a medieval dish eaten probably in whole
Europe, but it was not a sweet cake. In the Polish tradition sweet pączki's appeared in 16th century.
But the pączki's we know now, are originating from the 18th century, when people started using
yeast for making them.

So how to make a pączek?
(singular: pączek, plural: pączki ;D )

Ingredients:
• 1 cup (250 ml) of milk
• 50 g fresh yeast
• 3 spoons of sugar
• 500 g white flour
• a pinch of salt
• 1 spoon of vanilla sugar
• 1 egg
• 4 egg yolks
• 40-50 g butter, melted and chilled
• 2 spoons of alcohol (spirit ← that high voltage pure bastard)

and:
• 1 l of frying fat, preferably lard (but it can be oil also)
• fruit jam, or marmalade of your choice, the best is home-made
• icing sugar made from powder sugar and water or lemon juice

Firstly you need to make leaven yeast, so warm the milk to a room temperature or a bit warmer, add
crushed yeast (it's so fun to crush them! :D ), 1 spoon of flour, and 1 spoon of sugar. Stir it all
together, put a cloth over the bowl and leave it in a warm place for about 15 minutes (like near
a stove, or another warm source (or even in a larger pot filled with warm water).

Sift a flour to a large bowl, add a salt and vanilla sugar.

Mix the egg and yolks with the rest of sugar untill they will be all white. Put the yeast mixture into
the bowl with flour, stir them together using wooden spoon (Have no idea why there is a wooden
spoon in the recipe, but I like them anyway, so why not?).

Add the mixed eggs and stir again. Now knead the cake, squeeze it by hand for about 15 minutes
(or if you are lazy, use the mixer). If the squeezing is ready, you should be able to separate cake
from your hands :p

Now add the melted and chilled butter and alcohol. Yes, that alcohol is needed for the cake to be
more crispy and absorb less fat during frying. But if you want, you can also drink a little ;)

Squeeze a bit again to mix the new ingredients in.

Put a cloth over the bowl and leave it in a warm place again, this time for more than an hour
(1,5 hour). It doesn't have to be strongly warm, just no source of cold air, the kitchen surface near
the cooker, or near the radiator should be good.

Flour a bit the flat surface, put there a cake and squeeze a bit. Flat the cake for the thin approx.
2 cm, take a glass and cut the round pieces of cake using the edge. The rest of cake shape again to a
ball, then flat it and cut again, until there will be no cake left. Take each round cookie piece, faltten
it a bit on your hand, place a teaspoon of jam or marmalade in the center, and carefully shape it
round again. Remember to leave no holes in the cake, so the jam can't escape! It's a bit like filling
dumplings. Place your round filled pączki's on the floured flat surface leaving some free space
between them and put a cloth on top. Leave them for about half an hour (weeeee Facebook time!
Or other free time!).

Pączki's filled with jam, waiting to grow

15 minutes before the end of pączki's growing time, start preheating the fat in a large pot. The fat

should be 180*C hot. Prepare the large lotted spoon (or something other you prefer to put pączki's

out of the hot fat). Prepare the icing sugar. You can add candied orange peel to the icing sugar, it

will be deadly awesome.

When the pączki's are ready (so they did grow), and the fat in the pot is as hot as 180 degrees C,

place about 5 pączki's at a time into the pot. Once they will be brown at one side, turn them round to

get brown in the other :) So fry them for about 2 minutes on each side. They shouldn't get brown too

fast, as the inside may be not ready and the outer side burned. So if needed, adjust the cooker to fry

slower. After removing a pączek from the pot, dry it a bit on a paper towel. While they are still

warm, put the top part of them in a bowl with sugar icing, so they will gain it, and cool them on a

plate. Or eat immediately – the warm are the best!

Frying process :)

They are ready!

I wrote those instructions last year for a friend of mine. This year another friend asked me for this, so I decided here is a better place for the recipe, as I had it done. And tomorrow is the Fat Thursday again! Please, don't laugh at my own translation of those Holidays ;)