Happy Paczki Day!

Window display at Dutch Girl Donuts in Detroit

When I was living in the D.C. area last year, I had to go out of my way to find paczki for Paczki Day (aka Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras). Now that I'm back home in Metro Detroit, it's a lot easier to find paczki, but I wanted to try some of the best. It had been more than a decade since I had Michigan paczki, so I had to read paczki reviews online to decide where to go. I found five or six places that seemed to make every best paczki list, and I settled on two: 1) New Palace Bakery in Hamtramck, and 2) Dutch Girl Donuts in Detroit.

To avoid the crowds, I went to each bakery the day before Paczki Day. First, I stopped at Dutch Girl Donuts. I have driven by this bakery many times and noticed that it always seemed to have a good crowd, even before dawn. The first thing I noticed upon entering was the intoxicating smell of donuts. The sweet aroma was overpowering, as if the building were made out of donuts.

Finding the Perfect Paczki in D.C.

Photo by Brian Mulloy

Growing up as a Polish-American kid in the Detroit area, there were things I assumed were the norm throughout America: 1) Polish surnames with multiple consonants in a row, whether they ended in "ski" or not; 2) kielbasa at every family gathering; and 3) Paczki Day. After leaving the Midwest, I saw Polish names less often; ate less kielbasa; and realized that most East Coasters sadly have no idea what paczki are.

What's Paczki Day? Well, it's known as Fat Tuesday or Mardis Gras everywhere else. Traditionally, Fat Tuesday is the last day before Ash Wednesday when Lent's fasting begins, so Polish tradition called for one last hurrah of eating bad things before Lent began. In Poland, they actually eat paczki on the Thursday before Ash Wednesday, but Polish immigrants to the U.S. often baked and ate the treats on Fat Tuesday, making the holiday also known as Paczki Day in heavily Polish regions like Detroit and Chicago. In Detroit and especially its neighboring city of Hamtramck, it has become the Polish equivalent of St. Patrick's Day.

So what's a paczki? Technically, "pączki" is the plural of "pączek," but most Americans just call it a paczki. Paczki are a deep-fried dough ball glazed or powdered with sugar, often served with a jelly filling. They are kind of like jelly donuts, but they are far superior. Authentic paczki have dough made with eggs and have a lighter texture similar to brioche or challah bread.

How do you pronounce paczki? Since Polish letters are not always pronounced in similar ways to English or Romance languages, the answer might not be intuitive to native English speakers. I'm not sure if it's the result of different Polish dialects or Americans butchering the Polish language, but I've heard three primary pronunciations in the U.S.: 1) Poanch-key; 2) Poonch-Key; and 3) Punch-key. I interchange "poanch-key" and "poonch-key."

This year, I decided that it had been too long since I had a paczki, so I did some research and found three possible sources in the D.C. area: 1) Giant Supermarkets; 2) the Kosciuszko Foundation's Center near Dupont Circle; and 3) the Kielbasa Factory in Rockville, MD.

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