Preparing Pączki
Ingredients
If the table or any part of the recipe is too squished on your device, try rotating it to landscape orientation
| 120 ea | 90 ea | 60 ea | Pączki |
|---|---|---|---|
| ~1.5 kg | 1.2 kg | ~0.75 kg | All-purpose Flour |
| 375 g | 280 g | 187 g | Butter |
| 0.5 L | 0.375 L | 0.25 L | Milk |
| 300 g | 225 g | 150 g | Sugar |
| 200 g | 150 g | 100 g | Yeast (Pressed, fresh – you may use equivalent amount of dry active yeast[1]) |
| 10 | 8 | 5 | Eggs |
| 10 | 7 | 5 | Egg yolks |
| 1 tbsp | ¾ tbsp | ½ tbsp | Salt |
| 60 mL | 45 mL | 30 mL | Rum (or Rum Essence or Arak Essence) |
| ~800 g | ~600 g | 400 g | Plum Butter |
| ~ 2kg | Lard for frying | ||
[1] Instead of 100 g of fresh yeast, 3 tbsp of active dry yest and 90 mL of water can be used. It may take longer for the dried yeast to start working.
Steps:
- Melt butter. It can be done in a glass container in a microwave. Do not overheat. Let it rest but not solidify.
- Put sugar in a mixer bowl. Add salt and 3 tbsp of flour (6 for the larger portion). Mix with a wooden spoon.
- Bring half of the milk to a boil, and add to the bowl. Mix until uniform and like liquid glue.
- Add the remaining cold milk and mix. Add crumbled yeast, eggs and egg yolks, and mix well with a mixer.
- Continue mixing with a flat beater while gradually adding flour. It requires approximately the amount of flour listed, but it varies from one brand to another. The goal is to obtain the dough that has consistency similar to one used for Polish laid noodles. Other way to describe it, is that the dough should be not very thick, just enough that it could be handled to wrap around the jam, but not thicker than that. This is very important for pączki to be fluffy and light, rather than heavy and chewy.
- Continue mixing while adding melted butter in small portions (not too hot) and rum.
- Once thoroughly mixed, switch from flat beater to a hook and continue mixing until the dough no longer stick to hand (about 10 minutes). While mixing, make sure to scrape down the dough that adheres to the walls.
- Remove the hook and form a ball from the dough on the bottom of the bowl. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap (Cling Wrap™) and let it rest and prove for 30-60 min, or until it rises to twice the original size.
While waiting for the dough to prove, you can prepare the glaze (see Glaze below).
At this point you can also start heating the lard (see step 13 below). - If the dough rises too much, you can deflate it by gently patting on the top. You may need to do it several times while you make individual pączki.
- Take a portion of the dough onto a working countertop or a large wooden cutting board dusted with flour. Form a roll about 3 cm diameter and cut it into about 35 g pieces[2]. Form a circle from each piece and place about a heaping teaspoonful of jam filling[3] in the center.
- Fold the sides of the dough up to enclose the jam inside and pinch the edges on the top to seal it. The process is similar to making Chinese dumplings. Once sealed, throw the pączek formed, sealed side down, onto a board covered with a linen cloth and dusted with flour. Pączek should land with a ‘splat’, which will even out the sealed side. See “Sealing” video. At this point it will be somewhat deflated. Leave it there until it rises again to twice the size; when it does it is ready to be fried.
- While the first batch rises prepare the second batch.
[2] It is important to weigh the pieces as it is hard to judge their size by eye, the dough may be more or less fluffy depending on how much it was handled.
[3] Traditionally Polish pączki were made with a filling of plum butter or rose-hip jam. It is important that the jam is very thick. If you cannot find a suitable one in the store, you can cook down commercial plum jam until it thickens. Use jam that has less sugar and preferably not thickened with pectin. You may be able to find a suitable product in stores that specialize in European, Eastern European or Polish products. The same applies to rose-hip jam. Some people prefer one that is made with addition of rose petals and has strong rose aroma, but this is hard to find.
Frying pączki
- Melt the lard in a large pan on medium heat. A wok-shaped or similar large pan that widens at the top works well, as it requires less lard than regular pot. You need about 2.5 Inches (5 cm) of lard in the pan. Heat the lard until it reaches 170°C (338°F). The optimum frying temperature is between 171 and 175°C (340-350°F). At lower temperature, the dough absorbs more fat and the paczki will become fatty. At higher temperature the outside will fry too fast while in the center the dough may not fully cook.
- When the temperature is right, place pączki into the hot lard. You can fry several of them at once (in my wok I can fit up to 10). The temperature may drop a little when you place that many at once, so it is best to keep watching the temperature as you go and adjust the heat as needed.
- I found that it is better to fry them with the sealed side down first for about 2 minutes then turn them over for additional 2 minutes. I use a spider strainer to gently place pączki in the fryer and then to take them out. See the picture below.
- Take the pączki out onto plates covered with paper towels to absorb any dripping lard. When they cool a little, glaze them by dipping the tops in the glaze, and transfer to another plate or cooling rack. Make sure that each pączek has a few pieces of the candied orange peel; fish some from the glaze and put on top if necessary. See the picture at the top.
- Serve while still fresh. If you need to keep paczki for longer, freeze them as soon as they cool down (without glaze). They will keep well for a couple of weeks. Then, shortly before serving, defrost them in microwave, about 10-15 seconds per pączek on full power. This will heat the filling to very hot, so let the heat from inside permeate out for a few minutes. Glaze them while waiting to be ready, before serving. They will be almost as good as freshly made.
Videos
Glaze
Ingredients
| For glaze: | |
|---|---|
| 1 kg | Icing sugar |
| 250 mL | Boiling water |
| To taste | Orange Peel, candied (50-100g) see https://madscientistchef.com/candied-orange-peel/ |
| 30 mL | Rum or Distilled spirit 70% |
| To taste | Citric Acid or lemon juice (better too little than too much) |
Directions
- Place 1 kg of icing sugar in a bowl big enough to hold it. Add 250 ml of boiling water. Immediately mix with a spoon or by mixer with a whisk.
- Once uniform, add lemon juice or a solution of citric acid in water (better too little than too much) and mix.
- Add rum or spirit and mix well again. The addition of alcohol will help the glaze to stay smooth and prevent sugar from forming large crystals.
- Finally add candied orange peel, cut into small cubes (2-3 mm).
- You can use the glaze on hot pączki. Do not put the glaze in the fridge, unless you need to keep it for long (more than a few weeks). If it becomes too stiff to be used (especially if kept long in a fridge), you can reconstitute it by heating it in a microwave until quite warm and then stir it occasionally as it cools down.
- Other than for pączki, it can be used for other baked goods, especially sweet yeast breads (or Easter babas).
Notes
- If you overheat the oil close to 180°C or above, it is best to turn off the heat and wait until the temperature drops below 170°C, then turn the heat back on to medium and wait for the temperature to rise back to 172°C.
- I use a ThermoPro TP20 Wireless Remote Digital Meat Thermometer Cooking Food Thermometer with Dual Probe for Smoker Grill BBQ Thermometer available on Amazon. It allows for measuring high temperature of cooking oil, but any thermometer that can measure temperature up to 200°C (400°F) will work.
- In commercial bakeries, pączki are often filled using a large syringe after the dough is already fried. I prefer to fry pączki already filled as this changes the flavour of the whole pączek. Also, I have yet to find a syringe with a tip big enough to push through a very thick plum butter. If I do, I will try to Form a ball of dough and fill the centre with the jam, then seal the hole. If successful, I will modify this post accordingly.
Update: this didn’t work, the pączki became very irregularly shaped. I am still experimenting with different ways to form pączki. However I discovered that the ones I filled after frying using a syringe, and then froze them, upon re-heating in the microwave got their jam re-cooked and tasted almost as good as those fried already filled.
To contact me with questions or comments, please send me an e-mail to [email protected]