BUFFALO, N.Y. — It's not Fat Tuesday in Buffalo. It's Paczki Day.
"We're here to celebrate Fat Tuesday or Pączki Day, so we're making about 5,000 paczki all day," Marga McMahon of Mazurek's Bakery said early Tuesday morning. She's the senior director of innovative learning at the OLV Human Services Vocational Training Program there.
The decadent pastries are the result of what happens when you take an "everything but the kitchen sink" approach to baking.
"In Poland, in order to prepare for the Lenten season, people would try to get rid of all the sugars, butter, and fat from their pantries, so they would make this really enriched dough donut so now we have just adapted that recipe," McMahon explained.
Of course, you don't have to be Polish to celebrate.
"I feel like it's just part of being from Buffalo. I'm an Irish girl and not Polish at all, but we grew up coming down to Mazureks for Paczki," McMahon said. "I think people just like to keep up traditions that their parents celebrated, so we're just hopeful that we can help people celebrate that today."
It's a lot of work for the staff at Mazureks to make five thousand paczki.
"It takes probably about 45 minutes just to weigh out all of the ingredients, mix the dough, and let it rise," McMahon said. "After that, we scale it off, we roll it into donuts, and then they go in the proof box for a while. Once they come out of the proof box they're big, round donuts. We fry them two dozen at a time, we glaze them and then we fill them before they get boxed."
A lot of work, but worth the effort, and the indulgence.
"Thank god it's only once a year I guess, but it really is my favorite day of the year despite having to work some crazy hours," McMahon said. "It really is fun just to kind of make these and share them with people, and there really is nothing like it when it's hot."