Happy Paczki Day, Chicago! Today celebrates the fluffy, delectable, jam-filled Polish pastry — and Chicagoans excitedly buy thousands of boxes of them every year.
“Last year we sold out in about seven minutes,” said chef Ashley Robinson of Familiar Bakery.
WBBM visited Robinson and her team at Familiar Bakery as they prepared around a thousand pastries for Fat Tuesday. Robinson said it took her team nearly six hours to bake the traditional pastry.
“It is very labor intensive. We make a milk bread dough, which mixes for something like 25 minutes, let it sit overnight, and every single one is hand rolled and fried. That in itself is a huge process, and then all of our fillings are made from real ingredients,” said Robinson.
The story of Paczki Day is centuries old, beginning during the start of Lent, a religious observance in the Christian liturgical calendar before Easter. During this time of sacrifice, paczki were created to use food items, like sugar and eggs, that families would sustain from during the fasting season of Lent. The tradition became a day for people to fill up on the deliciousness they planned to give up for the next month.
Today is considered one of the busiest days of the year for Chicago-area bakeries.
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