Back to business and not the healthy kind – today we are celebrating Fat Thursday or ’Tłusty Czwartek’ as I have always known it to be called. A day for eating donughts, or Polish pączki, as well as sweet pastry twists known as chusty, or faworki and as much sweet food as you can get your hands on. Fat Thursday is, in fact, celebrated in many countries all over the world – in Italy my sister is celebrating Giovedì Grasso and the start of Carnivale, in Germany you might finish work eary and get an unnofficial holiday. Fat Thursday signals the start of lent – you try and use up all the butter, sugar and eggs in the house that you are not supposed to eat until Easter Sunday. In England, we wait until Shrove Tuesday, of course, and eat pancakes. Either way, there’s no better day, or excuse to miss out on eating Polish donughts, a taste of my childhood, traditionally filled with plum jam or rose petal jam and drizzled with icing. Today, I’ve been invited to my local Polish delicatessen to eat donughts with them (Poles are incredibly friendly and hospitable!) and I’ve baked a delicious Polish sernik or cheesecake and lots of other Polish treats to eat with friends tonight. I’ll be sharing the cheesecake, recipe, soon.
Polish doughnuts, Pączki
In the meantime, if you want to try your hand at making some Polish sweet treats, check out these Fat Thursday or Tłusty Czwartek recipes over at Bigos UK. In particular, I’d recommend these chrusty or faworki (angel wings) from Margot (Gocha) at Coffee and Vanilla or try these Polish Doughnuts from Anula’s Kitchen.
More sweet treats coming up…
Karpatka – Carpathian Mountain Cake
Sernik – Baked Polish Cheesecake
More of my Polish recipes
Hidden Apple, Cinnamon & Honey Cake
Happy Doughnut Day!
Ren Behan
Ren Behan is a British-born food writer of Polish descent. She is a mum to two young children (6 and 3) and spends lots of time with them in the kitchen. Ren writes about seasonal, family-friendly food on her blog www.renbehan.com and about Polish food on her site www.mypolishkitchen.co.uk. She also contributes recipes and articles to online and print food publications. Ren holds a Diploma in Food Journalism with Distinction and has completed a Food Styling course at Leiths School of Food and Wine. Full Profile on Google+
Those doughnuts looks absolutely gorgeous. I love learning about bakes from all over the world, it’s fascinating.
Thanks Sophie, a friend of mine just emailed me to say a Polish collleague had brought in doughnuts for her work colleagues – now that’s a nice idea!
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Oh, they look sooo yummy! Just send my husband to get some ready ones, I’m fed up with deep frying after making faworki couple of days ago
Have a wondeful Tłusty Czwartek!!!
p.s. Added link to this post on Bigos
Thanks Margot, yes, ready ones are often the best quick idea! Hope you enjoyed Tlusty Czwartek and thank you so much for adding the post to Bigos UK xx
I meant “wonderful” of course!
Ah, this explains a lot. At work today one of my delegates came in clutching a “Polish doughnut” which he had been given by a friend (presumably Polish), but was unable to explain its significance. Now I know.
This made me laugh so much, at least now you know why!
Cudownie, że tu wpadłam!! Jest pięknie, jest pysznie! U mnie co prawda pączków dziś nie było ale szaleństwo w Warszawie na całego. Będę tu zaglądać. Podobają mi się polskie motywy i cudowne fotki. Pozdrawiam baardzo!!
Dziekuje bardzo Aga, bardzo milo cie poznac xx
What a great excuse to eat doughnuts! I love the idea of a rose petal jam filling. But all your polish sweet treats look wonderful. You’re inspiring me to get baking.
Yes the rose petal jam filling is a bot special, you have to find really untouched organic rose petals! A favourte preserve of many Polish grandmothers!
I am reading this at 7.15 am, hungry, and having to settle for porridge rather than a plum jam-filled doughnut, or slab of Karpatka. Jealous is an understatement
It’s always good to learn about food traditions & this is one of the more delicious ones I’ve seen. And you are so right about Polish hospitality. My daughter was a flower girl in a wedding held in Krakow & the feasting & festivities went on for days. We were exhausted!
Yes, ‘slab; is the appropriate word for the Carpatka, it looks like such a delicate cake but it’s filled with creme patisserie, so it is quite something! I bet your daughter looked so beautiful, did she have to wear a traditional Polish costume?
Fat Thursday sounds like a great concept and I’d have been very happy to have joined in by eating any of the treats you’ve shown.
Thank you Chocolette, perhaps chocolate filled doughnuts for you!