It’s the tastiest Tuesday of the year; Paczki Day!
“A ‘paczki’ is very similar to a doughnut but the dough has more eggs, more butter, a richer type of doughnut dough,” said owner of DeEtta’s Bakery, Kevin Tyschper. “What we do is we fill ours with nine different flavors, of anything from a custard to a fruit filling to a cheese filling.”
More commonly known as “Fat Tuesday,” this day rose to prominence as a time to indulge before Lent begins.
“It’s really the day where you used up all of your, at that time, lard, sweets, chocolate, fruits, you use all that up before traditionally you would give those up for the Lenten season,” explained Tyschper. “It’s kind of evolved from there where it’s just another great day to buy a filled doughnut.”
At DeEtta’s Bakery here in Naperville, paczki preparations begin with mixing, rolling and rising over a thousand pounds of dough – getting ready to serve up the most paczkis in DeEtta’s history.
“This year we’re going to make at least a minimum of 6,000. We’ll probably make more than that, we just need to see how many we can physically make, because we probably will run around the clock, from Monday afternoon to Tuesday evening,” said Tyschper.
After rolling, cutting and rising again, the dough is ready for the fryer.
“They fry in the fryer for about two minutes, until they’re completely cooked. Once they come out of the fryer they do have to cool, probably for about a half hour to 45 minutes, and then we can begin the filling process at that point,” said Tyschper. “So it’s probably two to three hours, from the minute you first start mixing to the minute you have a completed paczki.”
Stuffing each paczki with flavorful fillings like fresh strawberries, sweet custard and more.
Baking a sweet treat, that’s dipped and delicious.
Naperville News 17’s Evan Summers reports.
