Weber's Bakery
773-586-1234
7055 West Archer Avenue
Chicago, IL 60638
http://www.webersbakery.com/

Pticek and Son Bakery
5523 S Narragansett
Chicago, Il 60638

Those are generally my go to places. Sometimes you can also find them at Bobak's but I generally only go there to get them in I'm looking for Rosehip filling.

I haven't been to the one in Oak Lawn but the old Tuzik's on Kedzie was pretty good.

Tuzik's Bakery
4955 W 95th St
Oak Lawn IL
708-422-0099

Did not get to Weber's in time, but I did get to Tuzik's. Yummy! Not the lightest dough, but tasty. But as with donuts or beignets, the ones made most recently are the best; unlike red beans or chili, paczki are not better late in the day, let alone the second day.

That said, I bought a dozen just after lunch in 6 different flavors: custard, cherry, strawberry raspberry, apricot, pineapple (if they had the plum or rose hip jam ones, they were long gone ... which is what I should expect, going about this so late). They also had apple and blueberry, which I didn't get, and some little round cheese kolacky, which I did sample (good, but my all-time favorite kolacky are still from Vesecky's on Cermak in Berwyn). Several flavors of Tuzik's paczki come either glazed or with powdered sugar. I got some of each. Best: the custard, raspberry and cherry, all with powdered sugar. Very good. The pineapple? Not so much; but that may have been because it had been sitting around a while, and pineapple isn't my favorite filling. The glazed apricot was somewhere in between, but I suspect it would have been very good first thing in the morning, fresh from the fryer.

All I can add is: Yaaaaaaay! Paczki Day!!! Next year, I'll be smarter about this and go at 7 am to both Tuzik's and Weber's.

webdiva


There is very little in life that some freshly fried hot dough rolled in sugar cannot improve.

I got my yearly paczki fix at Pticek's this morning.

Having attended Cookie Monster's paczki making this past Saturday, I can appreciate everything that goes into making those wonderful things. After all the work that goes into it (and I learned IT IS HARD WORK, especially at a homegrown family bakery, no commercial processes here) I appreciate them even more. More boozy custard please.

Delightful Pastries
5927 W Lawrence Ave
Chicago, IL 60630
773-545-7215

Vital Information wrote:I'm a long time donut guy generally, and a paczki guy at least since it's become the hot thing around here--proud papa moment: daughter #2 was really bummed last Thursday when I did not get any donuts. Anyways, I've never, ever, ever, had paczki as good as what I picked up yesterday at Oak Park Bakery.

Maybe slightly less than traditional; the dough was crisp but still light. The donuts were halved and filled with a variety of fillings, essentially Oak Park Bakery's coffee cake fillings. Mmmm cheese paczki!

BTW, OP Bakery provides their surplus goods to the Oak Park Food Pantry, another reason to love 'em.

Once again our family paczki's were the not very traditional, but very good versions served at OP Bakery. Try 'me some year.

A co-worker brought in paczki from Bennison's bakery . . . I had the cream-filled and it was delightful. Real cream "no fake crap" as my pop would say. I liked how yeasty it was and not too sweet except for the powder-sugar dusting. No one would touch the "prune" version, so I did the good deed of taking it home. Me and my boys divided it 4 ways and although the pastry had toughened a skinch since it was now late evening, it tasted really nice, especially the plum "jam" or preserves inside. (And this was covered with granulated not powdered sugar.) They didn't put too much in there--I've never liked jelly-filled doughnuts because I hate how big blobs of too sweet stuff comes out. Anyhow, I was pretty shocked that my super picky 7 year-old was happily attacking the plum filling, "This is great, when can we have more?" I told him we'd have to wait until next year . . . and next year I am looking forward to conducting a plum/prune paczki taste off! Any suggestions for places that serve a rocking plum paczki are appreciated.

bjt

bjt wrote: Any suggestions for places that serve a rocking plum paczki are appreciated.

bjt

Both Oak Mill Bakery and GNR Delightful Pastries serve them all year round.

stevez wrote:

bjt wrote: Any suggestions for places that serve a rocking plum paczki are appreciated.

bjt

Both Oak Mill Bakery and GNR Delightful Pastries serve them all year round.

I'll have to try one of those! I got a box of assorted fruit flavors from Central Continental Bakery in Mt. Prospect, but only two plum ones. Those were very good and I wished I'd gotten more.

If you are ever in Hawaii this time of year, remember Fat Tuesday is Malasada Day. Malasadas pretty much = paczki. Leaonard's sells them all year long, but on Malasada Day they have numerous falvors, including tropical ones like coconut and passion fruit.

bibi rose wrote:If you are ever in Hawaii this time of year, remember Fat Tuesday is Malasada Day. Malasadas pretty much = paczki. Leaonard's sells them all year long, but on Malasada Day they have numerous falvors, including tropical ones like coconut and passion fruit.

something tells me that the passion fruit ones would be excellent: all that creamy tartness combined with the fried dough and powdered sugar ... AWWWW, you made me want one now!! Dammit!!!

webdiva wrote:

bibi rose wrote:If you are ever in Hawaii this time of year, remember Fat Tuesday is Malasada Day. Malasadas pretty much = paczki. Leaonard's sells them all year long, but on Malasada Day they have numerous falvors, including tropical ones like coconut and passion fruit.

something tells me that the passion fruit ones would be excellent: all that creamy tartness combined with the fried dough and powdered sugar ... AWWWW, you made me want one now!! Dammit!!!

you can order them any time at pticek's,not just paczki day
5523 s narragansett
chicago,il.
773-585-5500
& for paczki day they open at 430 am
see pticek's bakery thread for pic s page 3

In 2011, Polish Paczki Day is this Thursday, March 3rd.

American Paczki Day is Tuesday, March 8 which is Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday.

I just re-read this whole fabulous paczki thread. What a wonderful wealth of information! I was trying to pick out some key info for a friend and I ended up putting together this little summary.

I especially appreciate Anna Z. Sobor's information which helps to straighten out a lot of misconceptions about paczkis. She says: "Traditional Polish paczki (it's "cz" which sounds like the "ch" in paunch) are either dusted with confectioner's sugar or covered with a plain powdered sugar icing." And that the singular is paczek.

Anna tells us that Paczki Day "in Poland it is celebrated on the Thursday before Ash Wednesday--tlusty czwartek (fat Thursday). ….In Poland, Fat Tuesday is "Ostatki"--meaning the last day you can eat, dance, drink, etc. Cooks used up the last of their butter, preserves, oil, etc. before the Lenten fast."

"bakery fan" has only ever posted once on this forum but he or she gave a very good explanation of the difference between a real paczek and a jelly donut: Bakery fan says: "paczki are not simply glorified donuts. They're supposed to be richer (all those extra eggs and butter to use up!), not that sweet (that's what the fillings, glazes and powdered sugar are for), and definitely more plump than regular jelly donuts or bismarks. Those things you find in supermarkets aren't paczki but simply a crass attempt to cash in on the real thing. Stick with your favorite corner bakery for best results!"

In terms of fillings, the controversy continues. Traditionalists like plum, prune or powidla (cooked fruit). Other traditional fillings are rose and something "GAF" recommended, "advocaat" eggnog liquour or what "geli" calls "boozy custard". A chocolate covered custard filled pastry may be a really delicious treat but it's not thought to be a traditional Polish paczek. Eat them anyway! Why not!

Cookie Monster has this explanation: "Most of the other bakeries make their regular donuts and just call them paczki, but they collapse on you when you bite into them and are terribly sweet with even sweeter filling. That is not a paczki.
Traditional fillings are PLUM BUTTER (not prune) and Rose Petal Jelly. Plum butter is made with fresh plums not dried out prunes that are reconstituted and pureed.
All the other fillings are Americanizations. To give you a good comparison it is like eating a Chicago Pizza with Gruyere cheese and anchovies and calling it an authentic Chicago pizza. It might be an interesting combination but it has nothing to do with Chicago pizza and is not even remotely authentic. That is why when people say what great cheese paczki, I just want to laugh because no one in Poland makes paczki with cheese even the avant garde. I think this topic needs some clarification so people realize what an authentic paczki really is."

Cookie Monster also says: "Fat Tuesday is only a US thing. In Poland people eat paczki all year round, and at our bakery we make them all year round. The typical paczki dough is quite sturdy and not sweet, usually you have a lemon oil and rum in the dough. As you can fathom that is not your typical filled donut flavoring. Also when you bite into the doughnut it flattens out and is quite sweet with a lot of filling. A paczek (singular form) keeps its shape when bitten into, is not too sweet and the filling amount is about 1.5 teaspoons to 2 teaspoons. People eat it more for the dough than the filling, one of the earlier pictures with all that filling oozing out made me queasy. The dough has to compliment the filling and vise versa, but when the all you taste is filling then you miss the whole experience."

Cookie Monster is someone from GNR Delightful Pastries, one of the most wonderful places for bakery goods, not just paczkis and not just Polish.

Delightful Pastries
5927 W. Lawrence
Chicago
773-545-7215

Delightful Pastries
Chicago French Market - Store
131 N. Clinton Ave.
Chicago, IL 60661
Store hours:
Mon - Fri: 8:00 am to 6:00 pm
Sat: 9:00 am to 6:00 pm
Sun: CLOSED

Delightful Pastries
Old Town Chicago - Café & Store
1710 N. Wells St. map
Chicago, IL 60614
Store hours:
Mon - Sun: 8:00 am to 6:00 pm

Delightful Pastries will be having their ANNUAL PACZKI EXTRAVAGANZA on Sunday, March 6. According to their website:
"Class will be held from 2PM to 5PM, We will show how to make our delicious paczki and angel’s wings. All class participants will take a 12 paczki home and ¼ pound of angel’s wings home. Class will take place at 5927 W Lawrence Ave, Chicago IL 60630, (773) 545-7215, the cost of the class is $35, the class will run from 2PM to 4:30PM"

Meanwhile, paczkis are available year round so I may just have to head over there today and beat the rush.

Does anyone know if Halina's Restaurant at 5914 W Lawrence Ave still exists? I tried calling their 773-205-0256 but got no answer. I hope it is because this is Monday and they are closed on Monday.

I had an errand that took me to Bridgeport this afternoon so I stopped by the Bridgeport Bakery. What a tiny place! They were empty (of customers) when we were there except for another lady who was also looking for paczki and bacon buns. Unfortunately, the bakery only had six sad looking paczki. The counter woman said today was not their paczki day, come back next Tuesday.

But we did manage to score a bag of the legendary bacon buns. These were very much appreciated on the long ride back home especially since it was way past a missed lunchtime.

Two hours later we were right by Bennison's in Evanston but did not go in. "They are just jelly donuts," we sniffed. Besides, we could resist Bennison's since we were full of bacon buns.

Did anyone score any paczki today?
--Joy

Joy wrote:Did anyone score any paczki today?
--Joy

I got some at Delightful Pastries yesterday. they were... Delightful.

I really think that Dobra and Delightful Pastries make the best paczki in town; there's an elasticity to her dough that lightens the donut without losing its essential donut-ness. That said, Kolatek's is a lot closer to our daily path. We stopped in there for our fix.

Normally, Kolatek's has a tray or so of packi for sale, along with their assorted baked goods--some can be pretty good, but their baked goods are not quite as strong as their breads, deli or prepared foods*. Today, a good portion of the baked goods were replaced with trays of donuts and a little bit of mayhem as the bakery section does not normally use numbers. We brought home the aptly named Advocat, a few "pudding" (custard) and a few raspberry. Like I said, Dobra makes the best, but what the hey. These hit the spot.

Although most of their clientele at Kolatek's is a Thursday Paczki Day kinda crowd, they will be doing this again on Tuesday. What's especially enticing is beyond the donuts, all the range of Lenten-ish foods already on display at Kolatek's. They smoke salmon and whitefish chunks and whole trout. There are multiple kinds of herring. Blintzes were on display today. I'm going to have fun shopping here in the next few weeks.

Kolatek's
2445 North Harlem Avenue
Chicago, IL 60707-2047
(773) 637-3772


*There are so many reasons to love Kolatek. One is their daily specials (except the Tuesday special of "luncheon meat", but maybe that's something authentic I don't get). Anyways, on Saturday, the butter cookies (not all of them on any given Saturday) go from $6.99 to $2.99.

Of course, sometimes I like the deal and sometimes I splurge on the cookies further up the street at Palermo.

So does Delightful Pastries do paczki every day, or only today and Tuesday?

Vitesse98 wrote:So does Delightful Pastries do paczki every day, or only today and Tuesday?

They have them all year round.

Spunky Dunkers in Palatine is doing handmade paczki right now. They only make them at this time of year. Too much filling for strict authenticity, but I thought they were pretty good.

This independent doughnut shop is definitely worth a visit. Both their cake and raised doughnuts are very good, they do a variety of seasonal items (cherry cake doughnuts for Washington's birthday, for example), and they're open 24 hours.

Spunky Dunkers Donuts
20 Northwest Highway, Palatine
847-358-7935
http://www.spunkydunkersdonuts.com/paczki_day

Popped into the aptly named Delightful for the first time today, after calling to confirm they had plenty of paczkis. Indeed they did (though against all instincts I compelled myself to freeze them for a near-future gathering, freezing being the preferred method of keeping them fresh). Still, I had a couple of questions for them. Like, why do some places have them only around Polish pazcki day, others only around Fat Tuesday, and still others year round?

She shrugged as politely as anyone can shrug (though don't get me wrong, this place and the people that work there are awesome) and answered in her Polish accent: "We are Polish bakery in Polish neighborhood. We have them everyday." Indeed. She did stress that certain varieties were only seasonal, but then added that they would make any of the varieties as a special order. How awesome is that?

Raspberry was sold out, but I more or less got a couple of all of them, save the Boozy Custard (not for kids!). Very excited about plum butter and rose petal!

gastro gnome wrote:I bought a half dozen from the Oak Mill Bakery mentioned above. Two each of chocolate-glazed custard, prune and rose petal.

I ate a chocolate first and wondered what the big deal was. I didn't think the custard had a 'boozy' taste, nor did the whole thing marry particularly with the chocolate.

I think you got the regular custard filling. The Advocaat custard-filled paczki are topped with a white icing and some candied fruit and are pretty damn good.

If you're going to go over the top, Bennison's makes a chocolate mousse-filled version that I liked a lot. It's $2, but worth it -- there's a lot of mousse, so if you're a minimalist, you may want so stick to the cheaper prune-filled (topped with cinnamon sugar). Very tasty, as bjt notes above.

And if you still need your fix, Bucktown Beanery (SW corner of Webster and Damen) is getting a delivery in at 8 am Tuesday. Too late for me, I'll be at work, or on my way there. Not sure where this delivery is coming from.

My podmate at work mentioned last week that she was planning to bring paczkis in today for Fat Tuesday -- at my suggestion, she ended up ordering from Delightful Pastries and picking them up at the train station on her way into the office. I think several people will now be running to the bakery to pick up their own. I'm so glad I could recommend them to her.

One of the other gals in the office sent me an email telling me the one she got tasted exactly like the ones her busia and mom used to make. I think she's going to make a trip in from Chesterton, Indiana to the bakery to see what else she can find there.

Suzy

I don't know who is supplying Gene's on West Belmont with paczki, but the rose petal filled one I bought there today around 11:30am was sublime. They also had apricot, raspberry, strawberry/whipped cream, and blueberry.

Gene's Sausage Shop and Delicatessen
5330 W Belmont Ave
Chicago, IL 60641
(773) 777-6322

Just picked up a dozen (not-preorderd) at Delightful Pastries in the French Market. It looked like they had at least 3 dozen left (though I may have bought them out of boozy custard).

I bought paczki from Oak Mill Bakery today. I had seen the paczki at Spunky Dunkers last weekend, but did not buy any because they looked so large (in diameter).

Is it normal for paczki to have not much filling? Here is a picture of a paczki from Oak Mill Bakery:

shorty wrote:I bought paczki from Oak Mill Bakery today. I had seen the paczki at Spunky Dunkers last weekend, but did not buy any because they looked so large (in diameter).

Is it normal for paczki to have not much filling? Here is a picture of a paczki from Oak Mill Bakery:

A work colleague brought these in today. I was not impressed.

I had one from Oak Mill today that a co-worker brought in- it was so soft-and collapsed
don't get me wrong it was tasty, but it just couldn't hold a candle to
the one's from Delightful Pastry that Dobra makes.
They are so much more substantial-
the balance of the dough and the filling is just right-
and the dough is as tasty as the filling.
mmmmmmm

Is it normal for paczki to have not much filling? Here is a picture of a paczki from Oak Mill Bakery:

Less than a jelly doughnut, yes. Yours seems unusually light on the filling though. I had one of those custard ones from Oak Mill on Saturday and it had more filling than that. They had fresh from the fryer rose jam filled ones on Saturday that were delicious. The freshness didn't seem to hold through the day. One I had later was not nearly as good.

Oak Mill is on my walk home from the train, so I popped in for paczki. One plum, one apricot, neither very good.

I would have happily paid the Old Town premium at Delightful Pastries for a proper plum paczki if it wasn't past their closing time.

-Dan

dansch wrote:Oak Mill is on my walk home from the train, so I popped in for paczki. One plum, one apricot, neither very good.

I would have happily paid the Old Town premium at Delightful Pastries for a proper plum paczki if it wasn't past their closing time.

-Dan

The Old Town premium appears to have climbed even steeper, seeing as how I paid just under $3 per this morning (post-tax). Won't be a regular thing for me at that price, but they were outstanding and I am generally willing to pay a premium for a well made product. Just have to put it out of your mind that you can get an identical product (at other DP locations) and a similarly well made product at certain other establishments for a lower (and in some cases much lower) price.