PACZKI - FAMOUS POLISH DONUTS

Steps:

• 1. Melt you 1/2 cup of butter and let cool to room temp. Warm milk and cream. Beat the whole eggs, yolks and sugar together then add butter and beat thoroughly. Next, add orange zest, salt, cream, milk, yeast, spiced rum and mix well. * THE DOUGH WILL BE SOFT AND STICKY. IT SHOULD ROLL OUT VERY EASILY AND SMOOTHLY.
• 2. Let the dough rise till double in bulk (at least an hour or longer), punch it down and let it double in bulk again. Here is Chef Tad punching down the dough.
• 3. After second rising, punch the dough down again and divide dough. Dust your board liberally with flour and roll out your dough to about 1/2 inch thick.
• 4. Cut into rounds with at least a 3 inch cutter & fry in hot oil. (If you have no cutter then you could use a thoroughly washed tuna can as your cutter.) HEAT YOUR OIL BETWEEN 325 TO 350 DEGREES. --- This is my good friend Kaycee who joined me for the class.
• 5. Depending on the size of your fryer only put a few in at a time. This size that we used in the photo we dropped about 5 to 6 rounds in at a time. Let them start to puff up in the middle and you can see them brown on the one side then turn them over to finish browning the other side. Take them out and let them drain on a paper towel. This happens very quickly within a minute or two.
• 6. After they have cooled you can fill them with your favorite filling or leave plain and dust with powdered sugar or plain sugar. --THESE DONUTS WHEN THEY PUFF UP ARE HOLLOW INSIDE. SO, IT MAKES THEM PERFECT FOR FILLING.
• 7. Here we are filling and dusting the paczki! VERY TRADITIONAL FILLINGS FOR PACZKI - Apricot Poppyseed Black Raspberry Lekvar - (sweetened prune puree) Rose Cherry and more non-traditional flavors too.
• 8. Put the coffee on...fill up some glasses with cold milk and let's eat some Paczki!
• 9. FOR FUN: Our male Schnoodle is named after the famous Paczki. It wasn't until I met my husband Anthony that I heard about the famous Paczki. Not only is his heritage Polish/Italian but he used to be a police officer and has had his share of Paczki. Every year, there is a box of Paczki's that arrive mysteriously in our kitchen! But now, I know how to make them so we can have some homemade. If Paczki the Schnoodle was allowed to eat these famous Paczki he for sure would win. He would probably eat all of them and then be sick but I can assure you every last Paczki would be gone. Do you see his focus on the donut? LOL --- I think he was thinking are they mine? All mine?!
• 10. I stopped over at Krakus Polish Deli & Bakery here in my hometown and saw these lovely towels and just "HAD" to get one. It only seemed right don't you think? lol