bake - January 2016 - 40

Paczki Day and Beyond
Paczki are donut-like pastries with a sweet ﬁlling. It is cus-

Mardi Gras

tomary for people to indulge on Fat Tuesday because lard,

A king cake is a type of cake associated in a number of coun-

sugar and eggs are forbidden during the Catholic Lenten

tries with the festival of Epiphany at the end of the Christmas

season. Retailers like Milan Bakery in Milan, Michigan, will sell

season, while in other places, the king cake is associated with

up to 10,000 paczki during February, according to owner

the pre-Lenten celebrations of Mardi Gras and Carnival.

LeeAnn Martin.
King cakes are a vibrant part of the Mardi Gras tradition in
Fat Tuesday is also Paczki Day for thousands of retail baker-

New Orleans. Originally, king cakes were a simple ring of

ies across the country, especially those located in the north

dough with a small amount of decoration. Today's king cakes

and Midwest. Paczkis are available year round at New Martha

are much more festive. After the rich Danish dough is braided

Washington Bakery, a popular retail bakery in Detroit, and the

and baked, the "baby" is inserted. The top of the ring or oval

bakery features a huge variety of ﬂavors including prune.

cake is then covered with cinnamon and sugar toppings in the
traditional Mardi Gras colors of purple, green and gold.

Creative Cakes in Tinley Park, Illinois, last year introduced
"Extreme Paczki," available through February 17. Flavors

In more recent years, some bakeries have been creative with

included creative twists such as Mississippi Mud (ﬁlled with

stuffing and topping their cakes with different ﬂavors of

chocolate custard and topped with chocolate icing, pecans,

cream cheese and fruit ﬁllings. On Jan. 6, the Twelfth Night

and coconut) and the Atomic (ﬁlled with half fresh straw-

after Christmas, is the day Mardi Gras season and king cake

berries and half fresh bananas in custard, and topped with

season begin. Mardi Gras Day, also known as Fat Tuesday, is

chocolate icing). Their Maple Bacon Mayhem paczki is ﬁlled

always 47 days prior to Easter Sunday (the day before Ash

with maple custard, iced with maple glaze, and topped with

Wednesday).

crumbled bacon.
"Depending on the time of year when the holiday falls, we'll
"We sell our paczki from the Epiphany, which is the ﬁrst week

do anywhere from 40,000 to 60,000 king cakes in that

of January, through Fat Tuesday. After that we don't sell any

period of time, probably half of that sold in the front shop,

more," says Beth Fahey of Creative Cakes. "It creates this

the other half shipped UPS," says David Haydel of Haydel's

sense of, 'I'd better get them now because it's really special

Bakery in New Orleans. "The week before Mardi Gras, we're

and I only get them once a year.'"

up to around 2,200 king cakes a day, just shipping."

40 < JAN 2016 | bakemag.com
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