Post by Bonobo on Feb 11, 2010 21:38:38 GMT 1
I have eaten a few pączeks today.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%85czki
Pączki (Polish pronunciation [ˈpɔnt͡ʂki]) are traditional Polish doughnuts (the word pączek is roughly translated as doughnut). Pączki is the plural form of the Polish word pączek [ˈpɔnt͡ʂɛk], though many English speakers use paczki as singular and paczkis as plural. In English, the common pronunciations PAWNCH-kee or PONCH-kee[1] imitate the Polish pronunciation, but some speakers pronounce the word as POONCH-kee, PUNCH-kee or PANCH-kee. The word "pączek" derives as a diminutive from the Polish word pąk ("plant bud"), evoking its shape.[1]
Typical pączki
Home-made glazed pączki.
A pączek is a deep-fried piece of dough shaped into a flattened sphere and filled with confiture or other sweet filling. Pączki are usually covered with powdered sugar, icing or bits of dried orange zest. A small amount of grain alcohol (traditionally, Spiritus) is added to the dough before cooking; as it evaporates, it prevents the absorption of oil deep into the dough.[2]
Although they look like bismarcks or jelly doughnuts, pączki are made from especially rich dough containing eggs, fats, sugar and sometimes milk. They feature a variety of fruit and creme fillings and can be glazed, or covered with granulated or powdered sugar. Powidła (stewed plum jam) and wild rose hip jam[2][3] are traditional fillings, but many others are used as well, including strawberry, Bavarian cream, blueberry, custard, raspberry and apple.[4]
Pączki have been known in Poland at least since the Middle Ages. Jędrzej Kitowicz has described that during the reign of August III, under the influence of French cooks who came to Poland, pączki dough was improved, so that pączki became lighter, spongier, and more resilient.
Pączki Day
In Poland, pączki are eaten especially on Fat Thursday (the last Thursday before Lent). Many Polish Americans celebrate Pączki Day on Fat Tuesday (the day before Ash Wednesday). Traditionally, the reason for making pączki was to use up all the lard, sugar, eggs and fruit in the house, because they were forbidden to be consumed due to Catholic fasting practices during Lent.
In the large Polish community of Chicago, and other large cities across the Midwest, Pączki Day is celebrated annually by immigrants and locals alike. In Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Milwaukee, South Bend, and Windsor, Pączki Day is more commonly celebrated on Fat Tuesday instead of Fat Thursday. Chicago celebrates the festival on both Fat Thursday and Fat Tuesday, due to its sizable Polish population.
In Hamtramck, Michigan, an enclave of Detroit, there is an annual Pączki Day (Shrove Tuesday) Parade,[4] which has gained a devoted following. In Garfield Heights, Ohio, the police reported that one year 3,000 people waited in line for pączki on Pączki Day.[citation needed] The Pączki Day celebrations in some areas are even larger than many celebrations for St. Patrick's Day.
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www.krakowpost.com/article/1857
Every month, Ewa Spohn steps out and samples some of Krakow's culinary delights ... and disasters
Thursday 11 February is Fat Thursday (Tłusty Czwartek) in Poland, a day of gorging on the last Thursday before the start of Lent, the 46-day period of supposed abstinence and contemplation that ends on Easter Sunday. It’s a day to use up stores of fat, eggs and sugar and also a day to pause your New Year diet, as in Poland, the hero of the day is the humble pączek, or doughnut. On that day alone, some 100 million pączki will be devoured in Poland, an average of 2.5 for every man, woman and child, so don’t be surprised if you see people hurrying out of the bakeries with trays of the goodies: they’re an accepted gift for family and co-workers and eating at least one pączek on that day is believed to bring you good luck for the rest of the year.
While the practice of frying sweet dough in oil has been around since Roman times, food historians say that frying yeast cakes developed in Mediaeval Northern Europe and their popularity has spread all over the world. Pączki became more popular in Poland in the 19th century, thanks to the French cooks at the royal court who passed on the knowledge of how to make light yeast dough. Deep-fried in lard or oil, refined alcohol (spirytus) is added to the dough in an effort to cut the calories by preventing the frying fat from penetrating too far. Even so, the average pączek still packs an average 250 calories into every mouth-watering, pillowy, sweet, rich and moreish package.
In order to give our readers a head start in the queuing on 11 February, we did a blind tasting just before this edition went to press. Corralling a glut of pączki from six different Krakow bakeries to the Krakow Post offices, I was joined by a panel of KP staff and Jonathan Ornstein (Director of the JCC and a man with wide ranging experience of U.S. doughnuts, Israeli sufganiyah and Polish pączki), and we diligently chomped our way through them so that you don’t have to. The pączki we tried fell into three distinct categories: great, good and OK (after all, no combination of fat, flour, eggs, sugar, yeast and jam can ever be bad).
Voted top of the list were the pączki from the Michałek bakery (ul. Krupnicza 6). They were slightly crispy on the outside and light and soft on the inside. In contrast to most of the others we tried, the fact that the jam wasn’t in a perfect blob in the centre testified that they were handmade from start to finish, rather than having the jam injected after frying. Our findings were no surprise as the Gazeta Wyborcza annual ranking has deemed Michałek’s the best pączki in Krakow for the last two years running.
Michałek was closely followed by the Cukiernia pod Arkadami (ul. Krakowska 5), whose pączki were much darker than any of the others, but were light, slightly chewy and had a light orange flavour and fragrance. They too were obviously made by hand from scratch.
The next two offerings were average and came from Kudelski (ul. Długa 29) and Piekarnia Buczek (branches across Krakow). Both were denser than those at the top of the class, and the Buczek offering was the largest of all those that we tried. Had they been lighter, they would have been great.
Bottom of the list came the pączki from Wanilia (ul. Brzozowa 13) and Cichowscy (ul. Starowiślna 21). Both of these were a surprise; Wanilia because their other products are usually great, and Cichowscy because it’s one of old Krakow’s favourite bakeries. Unfortunately, they’ve missed the mark with their pączki; Wanilia’s were more like a yeast bread and Cichowscy, by using real rose petal jam (uniquely among all of them), meant that most of us found the filling overwhelming. That said, born and bred Cracovians may love them.
So there you have it: our guide to the best pączki in Krakow, and something handy to have this Fat Thursday when you want to impress your co-workers or students.
Photo by Anna Spysz
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%85czki
Pączki (Polish pronunciation [ˈpɔnt͡ʂki]) are traditional Polish doughnuts (the word pączek is roughly translated as doughnut). Pączki is the plural form of the Polish word pączek [ˈpɔnt͡ʂɛk], though many English speakers use paczki as singular and paczkis as plural. In English, the common pronunciations PAWNCH-kee or PONCH-kee[1] imitate the Polish pronunciation, but some speakers pronounce the word as POONCH-kee, PUNCH-kee or PANCH-kee. The word "pączek" derives as a diminutive from the Polish word pąk ("plant bud"), evoking its shape.[1]
Typical pączki
Home-made glazed pączki.
A pączek is a deep-fried piece of dough shaped into a flattened sphere and filled with confiture or other sweet filling. Pączki are usually covered with powdered sugar, icing or bits of dried orange zest. A small amount of grain alcohol (traditionally, Spiritus) is added to the dough before cooking; as it evaporates, it prevents the absorption of oil deep into the dough.[2]
Although they look like bismarcks or jelly doughnuts, pączki are made from especially rich dough containing eggs, fats, sugar and sometimes milk. They feature a variety of fruit and creme fillings and can be glazed, or covered with granulated or powdered sugar. Powidła (stewed plum jam) and wild rose hip jam[2][3] are traditional fillings, but many others are used as well, including strawberry, Bavarian cream, blueberry, custard, raspberry and apple.[4]
Pączki have been known in Poland at least since the Middle Ages. Jędrzej Kitowicz has described that during the reign of August III, under the influence of French cooks who came to Poland, pączki dough was improved, so that pączki became lighter, spongier, and more resilient.
Pączki Day
In Poland, pączki are eaten especially on Fat Thursday (the last Thursday before Lent). Many Polish Americans celebrate Pączki Day on Fat Tuesday (the day before Ash Wednesday). Traditionally, the reason for making pączki was to use up all the lard, sugar, eggs and fruit in the house, because they were forbidden to be consumed due to Catholic fasting practices during Lent.
In the large Polish community of Chicago, and other large cities across the Midwest, Pączki Day is celebrated annually by immigrants and locals alike. In Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Grand Rapids, Milwaukee, South Bend, and Windsor, Pączki Day is more commonly celebrated on Fat Tuesday instead of Fat Thursday. Chicago celebrates the festival on both Fat Thursday and Fat Tuesday, due to its sizable Polish population.
In Hamtramck, Michigan, an enclave of Detroit, there is an annual Pączki Day (Shrove Tuesday) Parade,[4] which has gained a devoted following. In Garfield Heights, Ohio, the police reported that one year 3,000 people waited in line for pączki on Pączki Day.[citation needed] The Pączki Day celebrations in some areas are even larger than many celebrations for St. Patrick's Day.
www.krakowpost.com/article/1857
Every month, Ewa Spohn steps out and samples some of Krakow's culinary delights ... and disasters
Thursday 11 February is Fat Thursday (Tłusty Czwartek) in Poland, a day of gorging on the last Thursday before the start of Lent, the 46-day period of supposed abstinence and contemplation that ends on Easter Sunday. It’s a day to use up stores of fat, eggs and sugar and also a day to pause your New Year diet, as in Poland, the hero of the day is the humble pączek, or doughnut. On that day alone, some 100 million pączki will be devoured in Poland, an average of 2.5 for every man, woman and child, so don’t be surprised if you see people hurrying out of the bakeries with trays of the goodies: they’re an accepted gift for family and co-workers and eating at least one pączek on that day is believed to bring you good luck for the rest of the year.
While the practice of frying sweet dough in oil has been around since Roman times, food historians say that frying yeast cakes developed in Mediaeval Northern Europe and their popularity has spread all over the world. Pączki became more popular in Poland in the 19th century, thanks to the French cooks at the royal court who passed on the knowledge of how to make light yeast dough. Deep-fried in lard or oil, refined alcohol (spirytus) is added to the dough in an effort to cut the calories by preventing the frying fat from penetrating too far. Even so, the average pączek still packs an average 250 calories into every mouth-watering, pillowy, sweet, rich and moreish package.
In order to give our readers a head start in the queuing on 11 February, we did a blind tasting just before this edition went to press. Corralling a glut of pączki from six different Krakow bakeries to the Krakow Post offices, I was joined by a panel of KP staff and Jonathan Ornstein (Director of the JCC and a man with wide ranging experience of U.S. doughnuts, Israeli sufganiyah and Polish pączki), and we diligently chomped our way through them so that you don’t have to. The pączki we tried fell into three distinct categories: great, good and OK (after all, no combination of fat, flour, eggs, sugar, yeast and jam can ever be bad).
Voted top of the list were the pączki from the Michałek bakery (ul. Krupnicza 6). They were slightly crispy on the outside and light and soft on the inside. In contrast to most of the others we tried, the fact that the jam wasn’t in a perfect blob in the centre testified that they were handmade from start to finish, rather than having the jam injected after frying. Our findings were no surprise as the Gazeta Wyborcza annual ranking has deemed Michałek’s the best pączki in Krakow for the last two years running.
Michałek was closely followed by the Cukiernia pod Arkadami (ul. Krakowska 5), whose pączki were much darker than any of the others, but were light, slightly chewy and had a light orange flavour and fragrance. They too were obviously made by hand from scratch.
The next two offerings were average and came from Kudelski (ul. Długa 29) and Piekarnia Buczek (branches across Krakow). Both were denser than those at the top of the class, and the Buczek offering was the largest of all those that we tried. Had they been lighter, they would have been great.
Bottom of the list came the pączki from Wanilia (ul. Brzozowa 13) and Cichowscy (ul. Starowiślna 21). Both of these were a surprise; Wanilia because their other products are usually great, and Cichowscy because it’s one of old Krakow’s favourite bakeries. Unfortunately, they’ve missed the mark with their pączki; Wanilia’s were more like a yeast bread and Cichowscy, by using real rose petal jam (uniquely among all of them), meant that most of us found the filling overwhelming. That said, born and bred Cracovians may love them.
So there you have it: our guide to the best pączki in Krakow, and something handy to have this Fat Thursday when you want to impress your co-workers or students.
Photo by Anna Spysz
I even got a nickname ciasteczkowy potwor (it means cookie monster). Lol.
