Mini Cherry Filled Paczkis For Fat Tuesday!

If you're like me and you've been pronouncing it  "pack-skis" your whole life, stop now. I finally figured out how to pronounce it by punching it into Google Translate. See, in Polish they call a pączki a "ponch-key". I know, it makes absolutely no sense. I cannot say ponch-key and look at the word pączki simultaneously. It makes my brain hurt. I literally sat at my computer all morning listening to the translation over and over until I finally believed it.

After I made my discovery, I asked all of my family how they thought it was pronounced so I could have the pleasure of telling them they were all completely wrong. Although most of them had already heard me crying out my bafflement to the world all morning while the Google Translate lady said "ponch-key" over and over, I finally got them all to admit what their wrong pronunciations were. Mom was actually the closest with her pronunciation "poosh-key". I guess it's because out of the lot of us, she's got the highest percentage of Polish blood flowing in her veins.

P.S. I'm still calling them pack-skis. Forver.

I'm not a hundred percent sure what size this is. Maybe about 1 1/2 inches?? I don't know. I am no good at judging sizes or portions or anything that involves more than one millisecond of thought.

If you don't have biscuit cutters though, you can just pull off a piece whatever size you want, like so...

I made some really teeny tiny ones. Look how cute they are...

Don't worry, the cherries didn't go to waste. I ate them.

I ate them all.

You can actually fill these with anything you want. Any pie filling, pudding, custard, or jelly would work. Or maybe a chunk of chocolate? Bacon? Avocados?

Okay, I'll shut up now. Have fun.

• • Mini Cherry Filled Paczkis
  • (I think it makes about 30 mini doughnuts)
  • 1 cups milk
  • 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
  • 3 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 2 1/4 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoons fine salt
  • Peanut or Canola oil for deep-frying
  • 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar and 8 teaspoons water or milk (for glaze)
  • 1 can cherry pie filling with the cherries removed (or other filling, click here for custard filling)
  • Warm up the milk in the microwave or on the stove for just about one and a half minutes. It should be about 110º. If it's too hot it will kill the yeast. You should be able to comfortably keep your finger in it. Stir in the yeast and let it sit for about 3 minutes. Add the oil and sugar. Add the flour about 1/2 cup at a time and the add the fine salt. The dough will be very moist. Knead for about 10 minutes with a stand mixer or by hand.
  • Place in a greased bowl and cover with a wet cloth. Let rise for 30 minutes in a moist, warm place until about doubled in size.
  • Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface. Press it out into a large rectangle (maybe about 1/2 inch thick) with floured hands (remember, this dough might be pretty sticky) and cut it into the desired size for your doughnuts. Rise about 10 more minutes.
  • Fry in your Fry Daddy or in a pot of oil that is 350ºF (you can use an Infrared Thermometer to check it). They only need about a minute on each side till they're browned.
  • Fill the doughnuts with  the cherry filling using a Witon 230 Tip. Just stab the tip right in and squeeze. Do it while the doughnuts are still pretty hot and crispy, it makes it easier to stab the tip in.
  • Mix together the powdered sugar and water and dip the doughnuts in or dust them with powdered sugar.