R. R. Branstrom | Daily Press In the bakery at Elmer’s County Market, Sara Belanger, Ashley Lantagne and Art Ziebell flatten paczki dough, which makes the pastries easier to flip while frying.

ESCANABA — A food that many have come to know and love and consume once a year enjoys its time in the spotlight today. The paczek, plural paczki, is an ultra-rich pastry that is associated with Fat Tuesday at local bakeries.

Historically, the day before Ash Wednesday – the first day of Lent, a 40-day period of self-discipline, fasting, prayer and almsgiving in Christianity – has, for some people, been a time for enjoying the indulgences that they will be abstaining from until Easter. The tradition of making and consuming rich foods during the pre-Lenten Shrovetide has taken on such a following that it’s no longer just a way to use up the fatty ingredients in the home.

For many commercial bakeries, the busiest time of the year is when they’re preparing for the feast known as Carnival, Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Day and other names in various parts of the world. The festive period may be observed on just Tuesday or for several days prior. In Poland, Paczki Day is Fat Thursday, which this year was Feb. 27.

In parts of Michigan and other places with Polish ancestry, paczki are the Shrove delicacy of choice, and in Escanaba, the peak day of celebration is Fat Tuesday – in 2025, March 4.

Two local bakeries pride themselves on unique paczki recipes. At Donut Connection in Escanaba, current owners Vicky and Louis LaMarche – who bought the place from Terri Skradski in January 2024 – are using Skradski’s own recipe. These paczki are not only richer but also larger than regular doughnuts.

Vicky, Skradski’s niece, worked at Donut Connection for years before; she said that this is her 17th Fat Tuesday making paczki within the walls of the bakery in the mini-mall. In that time, the process has been streamlined to make the kitchen more manageable on what is the single busiest day of the year.

“We definitely found out ways to make it faster and easier on us,” Vicky said. “Over the years, it’s definitely been fine-tuning.”

Last year, Skradski helped out; 2025 marks the LaMarches’ first year running the show themselves. For the first time, they chose to spread their paczki sales out over three days this year – Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. Customers were able to pre-order paczki with 12 flavor choices and select their collection day and time.

In the kitchen at 2315 1st Ave N., paczki-making began on Saturday night.

“Once we do all the preorders, we’re just gonna make as many as possible … just keep making ’em and making ’em for three days,” Louis had said on Friday.

Today, Fat Tuesday itself, no dine-in will be available at Donut Connection because the tables will be stacked with boxes of pre-orders. However, the establishment will be open two additional hours – until 6 p.m. – and they welcome walk-ins.

At Elmer’s County Market, whose bakery also makes a variety of breads, cakes and other pastries, doughnuts and paczki aren’t their sole focus – but they put a lot of work into making thousands of paczki, utilizing the entire bakery staff and beginning preparations well ahead of time.

Like at Donut Connection, these special treats are available only once a year. At Elmer’s, though, both pre-orders and walk-in purchases of paczki are only distributed on Tuesday – unless they have any left over to be sold on Wednesday.

Paczki at Elmer’s are made with a recipe similar to that of a doughnut, but with extra eggs, sugar and butter, said Elmer’s County Market Bakery Manager Art Ziebell. Because of the ingredients, paczki brown more and faster than traditional doughnuts.

For about two weeks leading up to Fat Tuesday, the bakery prepares numerous batches; this year, they pumped out around 1,000 pounds of dough.

Each batch of dough, roughly 75 pounds, is heaved out of the mixer by two people. It’s divided into 15 bowling-ball-size portions that, one by one, are placed into a rounding machine that cuts and shapes each bowling ball into 36 single-serving dough balls that will become paczki. This rounder, a 1956 Fortuna model that Ziebell says he wouldn’t want to trade, is also used to make hamburger buns, Kaiser rolls and more.

The small balls are then hand-flattened, placed onto racks and frozen. The following day, they go into the proofer and then the fryer, where they’re turned over while cooking to brown both sides. The fried paczki are then filled to a weight of at least five ounces.

The bakery staff makes quick work of the process, consistent and controlled, so that the yeast doesn’t die, Ziebell explained: if dough sits out too long, it’s no longer good.

Elmer’s thousands of paczki were frozen, prepared almost completely, save for one last step.

“All we have to do Monday is eight hours of glazing, full throttle for everybody,” Ziebell said on Friday.

Since doughnut boxes aren’t airtight, he explained, glazing can provide a cocoon to keep the pastries fresh.

“The glaze actually is two-fold,” said bakery worker Suzanne Inman. “One, it helps secure in the moisture. Two, sugar can soak into the grease.”

Most often, paczki are covered in granulated sugar or powdered sugar. Glazing and frosting are not uncommon, though.

Prune is a classic filling, but many people prefer raspberry, chocolate, Bavarian cream, and others.

Donut Connection has this year brought back cream cheese – a flavor many enjoy but which hadn’t been offered for a few years.

Both Elmer’s and Donut Connection offer 12 varieties of paczki. If all sell out today, the next chance of grabbing a paczek from either bakery won’t be until February of 2026.