A deep-fried round fluffy and delicious pastry similar to a doughnut, usually filled with fruits, sweet fillings and topped with sugar or icing. Popular on Fat Tuesday aka Mardi Gras. Fillings such as Apricot, Bavarian Cream, Custard, Lemon, Blueberry, Cherry, Chocolate, Cream Cheese, Guava, Passion Fruit, Raspberry, Strawberry.
The difference between paczki and donuts is the ingredients in their dough. Paczki uses an extra amount of enriching ingredients, yeast, grain and high-gluten flour. Paczki are made of a very rich, sweet yeasty dough which consists of eggs, butter and milk. Regular donuts are not usually as rich.
Paczki, pronounced poonch-kee, are traditional Polish donuts, popular on Fat Tuesday aka Mardi Gras. This donut was originally developed hundreds of years ago to use up all the rich ingredients that were considered off-limits during the fasting period of Lent: namely butter, sugar, lard and milk.
