It’s only been within the last three or four years that my local supermarkets have been carrying paczki, and I’m not entirely sure why they are doing so now. It’s a seasonal thing and they just started up again last week.
I’m not a doughnut fan, but these things are like doughnuts on steroids. With custard!
Anyone else a fan of these incredible pastries?
I’ve never heard of them. Sounds like a worthy hunt…
Oh, and I see Paczki day is on Mardi Gras (Feb 20); that would be why they’re back.
Love 'em. They’re great (but I’m Polish, so I’m required to like them). Did you hear that Starbucks in Detroit is going to start selling paczki?
(also, little bit of trivia, in Polish, it’s spelled pączki. Paczki, without the little tail on the “a”, means “packages.” So, if you’re ever in Chicago and see signs for “Paczki do Polski,” don’t get too excited. It ain’t Polish donuts they’re advertising, but rather packages to Poland.)
Ha! That’s good to know.
The sign would still make me hungry, though. 
“Paczki do Polski” looks like “Debbie does Donuts” to me. The ogonek (I love the net!) under the “a” in pączki would explain the signs saying “It’s pronounced ‘ponch-key.’” Not precisely like it, but closer than “potch-key.” As to the thread title, they are fried dough balls filled with stuff–what’s to not love?
Depends on the “stuff”. :eek:
I am moved by your words and would like to subscribe to your newsletter. Please please tell me these delicacies are not ruined by that damned ubiquitous cheap-ass chocolate coating that they smear on every kind of donut with cream. (It takes forever to wipe that crap off.)
Noooo. At least, I’ve never seen them with any sort of icing.
We’ve seen them with granulated sugar (our favorite), powdered sugar, and glazed.
Now, our area is heavily German, not Polish, so we could be adulterating them from their pure Polish goodness with our heretical ways. I’m not sure.
You will occassionally find custard-filled paczki with chocolate glaze, but the standards would probably be raspberry and plum/prune-filled sprinkled with granulated or powdered sugar. A simple sugar glaze is also fairly common.
These are different to Boston Cremes and/or custard doughnuts how, exactly?
Poonchkis!!! In Toledo, they are quite ubiquitous as Fat Tuesday approaches.
I’m agonna have to go out and get some soon, I see.
Because they are usually not filled with cream or custard. The dough a good paczek (singular of paczki) is made of from is also quite different than a typical jelly doughnut. It’s a bit more “bready” in texture, and not as sweet.
The ones we get are very heavy and dense, and the pastry itself isn’t very sweet at all aside from the granulated sugar on the outside. The custard also isn’t super sweet.
Aaaand, the expert has already commented. Bah, I’m slow.
But if they’re not filled with custard, how is the custard delivered? Is it just slathered on or something?
A bit of information about paczek making… from your friends at Wiki. 
No, no, the custard ones are filled with custard. I’m just saying that paczki usually have fruit fillings, or at least that there are many more varieties of fruit-flavored paczki than custard ones. When I think of a generic paczek, I think of raspberry or prune filling.
I’ve never seen them in raspberry. I’d love to try it, though, as I love raspberry. I usually see them in strawberry and prune. I’ve also tried them with chocolate filling, which was good, but the fruit ones are better, I think (is that sacrilege from a chocoholic?).