Party Like a Pole – Fat Thursday or Tłusty Czwartek

Back to business and not the healthy kind – today we are celebrating Fat Thursday or ‘Tłusty Czwartek’ as it is called in Poland. A day for eating doughnuts, or Polish pączki, as well as sweet pastry twists known as chrusty, or faworki and as much sweet food as you can get your hands on.

Polish doughnuts

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 Carnevale. In Germany, you might finish work early and get an unofficial holiday. Fat Thursday officially signals the start of lent in the Christian calendar – you try and use up all the butter, sugar and eggs in the house that you are not supposed to eat until Easter Sunday and in some cases, you also give up meat – carnevale actually means ‘to say farewell to meat’. 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 doughnuts, 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 doughnuts 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.

Paczki Polish Donughts

Polish doughnuts, Pączki

Polish Sweet Treats

In the meantime, if you want to try your hand at making some Polish sweet treats, I’d recommend:

More sweet treats coming up…

Karpatka Carpathian Mountain Cake

Karpatka – Carpathian Mountain Cake

Sernik Polish Cheesecake

 Sernik – Baked Polish Cheesecake

More of my sweet recipes

Poppy Seed and Plum Cake

Hidden Apple, Cinnamon & Honey Cake

Mini Doughnuts with Chocolate Sauce for the Good Food Channel

Mini Doughnuts Ren Behan

Happy Doughnut Day!

PAczki-1-2

Similar Posts

17 Comments

  1. 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.

    1. Thank you Chocolette, perhaps chocolate filled doughnuts for you!

  2. 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!

    1. 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?

  3. 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.

    1. 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!

  4. 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!!

    1. Dziekuje bardzo Aga, bardzo milo cie poznac xx

  5. 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.

    1. This made me laugh so much, at least now you know why!

  6. 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 🙂

    1. 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

    1. 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! :-))

Leave a Reply to Ren Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *