Happy Paczki Day

Happy Paczki Day. I am channeling my inner Polish heritage, or lack thereof today. Paczki Day is how the Polish celebrate Fat Tuesday, namely by eating Paczki or jelly filled doughnuts.  It turns out this is not just something Pulaski coined. It is really a Polish holiday and I’ll be happy to help celebrate by eating my share of Paczki.

Because Paczki Day is a big deal in Pulaski, everyone talks about going to Smurawa Country Bakery to get their Paczki. Last year, the hubby picked us up some Paczki from Manderfield’s but there weren’t jelly filled. The news stations said Smurawa’s was the place to get Paczki. We decided that we would make the trip to Pulaski this year to get ourselves some real, authentic Paczki.

Initially, I was going to send the hubby to pick some up until I heard that there was polka music and you could play the accordion. It sounded like a real party. The hubby said he was going to play the accordion and sing in Polish…mind you he doesn’t know how to do either. I didn't want miss his Polish Music Debut. I re-arranged my work schedule to go in later and stay later. I said I would bring in Paczki. 

We decided to order our Paczki ahead of time. That turned out to be a really good idea. When we got there about 8:50 for a 9:00 pick up, there was probably at least 30 people ahead of us. Not knowing there was a pre-order line, we got in line and started inching our way to the front. After about 10 minutes, the hubby heard someone mention a pre-order line and I went to investigate. There was indeed a pre-order line and there were only 2 people in. it. Score.  The only disappointment was that the accordion players weren’t playing yet and it was too busy to attempt to play the antique accordion. 

Traditional Paczki flavors include prune, apple, and raspberry. Smurawa offers 19 different flavors including red velvet, key lime, poppy seed, Custard, Caramel Custard, pineapple, orange dream, chocolate, and peanut butter. We decided on custard, apple, raspberry, cherry, chocolate, and red velvet.

Believe it or not, we took our boxes of Paczki and drove home without even trying one. I grabbed my box for work. It wasn’t until I shared with my teammates, that I could finally sit down and enjoy one. Because, they put the filling side down in the box, you didn’t know what flavor you were getting at work. Luckily, I was nice and ordered “normal” flavors. I ended up with raspberry. Everyone had rave reviews.

O.M.G.THESE. THINGS.ARE.EVIL.

I can’t explain them.  It is so much more than just an ordinary jelly doughnut. It is soft, yet crispy covered in sugar and filled with amazing jellies and creams. Although I never had one that you can buy in the grocery store, my manager did say these are so much better. He compared it to getting Sourdough Bread from San Francisco. It is just that much better.

Next year, I will just send the hubby since the hoopla really wasn’t all that spectacular. In the meantime, I will continue to eat the dozen or Paczki we have left. I think I hear a custard one calling my name….