Last Sunday, a group of neighbors got together in a super enormous kitchen to learn how to make Paczki. We arrived by foot and by car, with super-sized bowls, bags of ingredients, and two deep fryers. Yes, there aren’y many that would tackle this project during the heat of July. But we were undaunted!

Look how nicely the yeast proofed —

By the time we were ready to start frying, we had twelve dozen balls of dough. We went with a traditional recipe of plain Paczki, no filling. Although we did roll some of them into powdered sugar and cinnamon.

Leah Durand organized the teaching session after learning Paczki making from local Paczki making expert, Julie Sinicki. (Leah only had to make one call to Julie for clarification.) Our host, Erica Moulinier, had an assortment of aprons ready for us along with most everything else we needed. Thanks to Jenn Kirk’s scouting, we had two scales available for weighing out the dough for our tasty pastries. Adele Towers lent her enormous bowls and a deep fryer. This was definitely a community effort. And look at the lovely results!

Many thanks to Leah for teaching this small group of neighbors about Paczki making and to Julie for agreeing to hand down her recipe to us. This was a wonderful way to spend a weekend afternoon. As we were finishing up, the crew for Lightweight was assembling for some outdoor shooting. A few of the crew were excited to learn what we had been up to and said that they would love to learn how to make these tasty pastries, too. Perhaps another teaching session is in order.