ANNUAL PACZKI EXTRAVAGANZA March 6

It is that time of the year again so I wanted to make a posting about our Paczki class

MARCH 6
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
http://www.delightfulpastries.com
We will have a little pierogi tasting before the class starts.
Dobra

Both my daughter and I will be there.

Great, I have a few people signed up here at the bakery already. It should be a fund time.
I will be testing out a gourmet paczki, a vanilla bean custard with chocolate ganache on top. It should be pretty tasty. Plus I got a recipe for berliners so I might be testing out the recipe out on the class.
See you in a few weeks.

Is there still room? If so, I'd like to come and then head over to the dessert exchange. Can I pay you that day?

Sure no problem, I still have a couple spots left.

I actually just did the tally and we have two spots left in our class.
We were just written up in the Sun-Times, here is the link:
http://www.suntimes.com/photos/galleries/3993984-423/food-detective-perfecting-paczki.html

Cookie Monster wrote:We were just written up in the Sun-Times, here is the link:
http://www.suntimes.com/photos/galleries/3993984-423/food-detective-perfecting-paczki.html

Nice article. I've just emailed my sister to let her know that there is one spot left. She'll probably want it.

Thank you!
David Hammond is a great writer.
The class is filled if your sister comes.

Cookie Monster wrote:The class is filled if your sister comes.

Yes, she would like to come. Shall we mail you a check or bring it on Sunday?

You can send it in, this way it is one less crazy thing that you need to do.
Remember the Dessert Exchange is right afterwards.
BTW can you post the recipe for your cranberry walnut galette, it was delicious and I want to make one for myself to have with delicious ice-cream.

I've posted the link in the 16th Dessert Exchange topic, but I'll add it here as well: http://www.joyofbaking.com/CranberryGalette.html

Thank you Ingrid. I must have missed it.
Dobra

Cookie Monster wrote:Thank you Ingrid. I must have missed it.
Dobra

Sorry, my mistake. I added it yesterday when you asked. I figured I should put it there for the others, but I added it here for your convenience.

Photos from the March 6, 2011 Paczki Extravaganza

It was great to see so many LTHers there... and Chef Dobra gave LTH a nice shout-out in her intro, too!

Thanks for a fun and educational afternoon... not to mention delicious!

Thank you Chef Dobra. The class was wonderful!!!

Thanks for a fun day. My friend was flabbergasted when I brought her the box of Packzi.

Great pictures mamagotcha.

A great time was had by all. Many thanks to Dobra (Cookie Monster) and Cookie Monster's Mom for offering the class.

The class began with a lovely taste of pierogi (I believe mine was mushroom sauerkraut), that had been gently sauteed until golden brown. Once we all finished our snack, we moved on to making angel wings. The dough was waiting for us and after Dobra rolled out the dough into very thin sheets, participants took turns cutting the sheets with a great antique rolling cutter gizmo, and shaping the cut dough into twists.





From there it was off to the fryer, drain, dust with powdered sugar. The finished treats were flaky, sweet and tasted great while still warm.







Dobra also shared with us some Polish traditions, including an explanation of why in Poland paczki are enjoyed on Fat Thursday before Ash Wednesday, rather than Fat Tuesday.

While there wasn't time to prepare the paczki dough in class, we discussed tips for working with yeast dough including the need for high protein flour, and Dobra's preference for using active dry yeast rather than fresh cake yeast (smell your cake yeast, if you don't like the aroma, you probably won't like the taste of the end product).



The pre-formed, proofed paczki dough came out of the proof box (kept about 90 degrees and moist with steam). While one group assisted Dobra at the fryer, others were assigned to ready the fillings. Jelly filled paczki were glazed once they came out the the fryer. Then they were filled with either rose jam (traditional Polish filling), plum butter (traditional Polish filling), raspberry, or apricot, using another very impressive piece of equipment that injected the filling. If I can figure out how, I'll try to add a short video.







Unglazed paczki were filled with either plain custard (and dipped in chocolate ganache), "boozy" custard, chocolate custard, or glazed fresh strawberries. The custard fillings were either injected (I think using the equipment mentioned above) or piped in by hand using a pastry bag. Strawberries were added sandwich style after slicing the paczki in half.



(The strawberry paczki for sale are even more tempting, with the addition of whipped cream or custard.)

Thanks again to the entire Delightful Pastries crew for their hospitality!

Thank you mrsm for your detailed description of the class and excellent photos.

My daughter and I had a great time, as usual with Dobra at the helm.