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Papua New GuineaFlavors · Poland
Round yeast dough pastry, fried, without a hole, filled with jam—traditionally rose petal or plum—and dusted with sugar or covered in icing. It’s the sweet of Tłusty Czwartek, the fatty Thursday before Lent, celebrated across the country.
Traditional sweet from Poland
Also known as: pączki
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
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Pączek — Poland
A pączek is a flattened ball of rich yeast dough with eggs and fat, fried until golden, filled and coated with confectioners’ sugar or icing, sometimes with candied orange zest. It has no hole in the middle. Traditional fillings are rose petal jam and plum; today there are also cream, berries, chocolate and others. A well-fried pączek often shows a lighter band around it where the dough rose above the oil.
The sweet is old in Polish cuisine. The Compendium ferculorum (1682) already describes fried yeast dough buns filled with rose or elderflower, then called pierożki. According to historian Jarosław Dumanowski, 17th– and 18th-century pączki were denser and more varied than today’s, and pastry manuscripts mention versions with almond, cinnamon and coriander.
The pączek is the symbol of Tłusty Czwartek, Fat Thursday, the last Thursday before Lent, which falls on a different date each year. Because older fasting rules forbade fat, eggs and butter, eating pączki was a symbolic farewell to carnival. On that day, bakeries and patisseries across the country have queues, offices share boxes of pączki, and superstition says those who don’t eat at least one will have bad luck all year. The rest of the year, a pączek is available at any bakery.
Poland
The pączek is the sweet of Tłusty Czwartek, celebrated across the country before Lent.
Wheat flour, yeast, eggs and yolks, butter, sugar and milk. Fried in lard or oil. Filling of rose petal or plum jam, or others. Confectioners’ sugar or icing.
Fresh, by hand, served with coffee or tea.
Tłusty Czwartek, the last Thursday before Lent; also year-round.
Your questions
A fried yeast dough bun, without a hole, filled with jam—traditionally rose petal or plum—and dusted with sugar or covered in icing. It’s the sweet of Fat Thursday in Poland.
Fat Thursday, the last Thursday before Lent. In Poland it’s the day to eat pączki: bakeries have queues, offices share boxes, and superstition says those who don’t eat one will have bad luck all year.
Rose petal jam or plum jam. Today there are also fillings of cream, berries and chocolate.
Flavors of Poland
Stew of sauerkraut and cabbage with various meats, smoked sausage and dried mushrooms, slowly cooked and reheated over days until the flavors meld. It is one of the dishes most connected to Polish identity and appears in the national poem Pan Tadeusz.
Dumplings made from unleavened dough, boiled in water and sometimes browned in butter, with savory or sweet fillings. The ruskie, filled with potato and fresh cheese, are the most common, and the cabbage with mushrooms variety is served on Christmas Eve.
Vodka made entirely in Poland from rye, wheat, barley, oats, triticale or potatoes grown in the country. The name is a national geographical indication that applies to both neutral vodka and flavored vodkas that follow the rules.
A sour soup made with zakwas, a fermented rye-flour starter, served with white sausage, a boiled egg and horseradish. It is one of the most important dishes of the Polish Easter and is sometimes served inside a loaf of bread.
Smoked pork cooked with dried plums, pears and other fruits, served with a sweet-and-sour fruit sauce and dumplings. The name means Silesian heaven, and the dish is on the Lower Silesia Traditional Products List.
Braided bread ring first boiled in very hot water and then baked, topped with salt, poppy seeds, or sesame. It’s sold from street carts in Kraków and has a European Union protected geographical indication.
A round wheat dough disk topped with raw chopped onion and poppy seed, baked until the edge is golden. It originated in the Jewish bakeries of Lublin’s old town and has a European Union protected geographical indication.
Yeast-based cake covered with a buttery streusel, made plain or filled with white cheese, poppy seed or apple. It is the wedding cake of Opole Silesia and has a European Union protected geographical indication.
Grated raw potato cake with fried bacon, onion, eggs and a little flour, baked in a pan until the crust is golden. It’s one of the most popular dishes of Podlaskie, the northeastern region of Poland, and is on the List of Traditional Products.
Flavored vodka with bison grass that grows in the clearings of the Białowieża and Knyszyn forests in Podlaskie. It has a light green-golden color and the smell of dry hay, and the official name is a protected geographical indication of the European Union.
Croissant in a crescent shape, made from yeast-leavened puff pastry, filled with white poppy seed paste with fruit and nuts, and topped with icing and chopped nuts. It is Poznań’s Saint Martin’s pastry, eaten on November 11, and has protected geographical indication.
Beef roulade stuffed with bacon, pickled cucumber and onion, cooked in sauce and served with kluski śląskie — potato dumplings with a little indentation in the middle — and red cabbage. It’s the Sunday lunch of Upper Silesia.
Long pastry made from leavened dough, fried and usually filled with seasoned ground meat with pepper. It originated in Szczecin in the early 1970s, made on a Soviet machine from 1969, and is on Poland’s List of Traditional Products.
Honey cake with pepper, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger and other spices, molded in wooden molds or cut into shapes. It has been made in Toruń without interruption since the Middle Ages and is on Poland’s national list of intangible cultural heritage.
Two-layer chocolate sponge cake with whipped cream in the middle, covered in chocolate and often topped with a cherry. It originated in Warsaw in the late 1940s, and the name is linked to the W-Z avenue, opened during the city’s reconstruction.
A very sour sauerkraut soup with smoked pork ribs or other smoked pork, served with boiled potato on the side or with bread. It’s the dish of the highlanders of Podhale, the Zakopane region at the foot of the Tatra Mountains.
