Tips and Tricks
Dough. The dough is soft and sticky. For the perfect crumb, it needs gentle care on all steps.
Filling. Most fruit preserves and jams are not thick enough for the filling. I made my own prune filling (for ten pączki) by blending the following ingredients until smooth:
-150 g prunes, chopped
-1 tbsp hot water
-1 tbsp amaretto
-1 tbsp rum
1 tbsp pomegranate molasses (without added sugar)
Shaping. The method of shaping pączki shown in this recipe is not the one and the only. It is the fastest and easiest if you care the filling is in the center with an even layer of dough around it, but you will end up with dough scraps. The best way to use these dough scraps is to combine them back into a ball, give it at least 30 minutes to rest, and make plain doughnuts.
Deep Frying. The temperature of the oil is crucial. It is more difficult to fry pączki to perfection without a professional frier. Ideally, you want to place the whole batch of doughnuts into the hot oil simultaneously, so the temp of the oil drops for all of them at the same time. The first doughnut gets the highest temperature and puffs too fast when placed one by one. When it happens, its shape deforms, and it is more difficult for it to float in the oil the way both sides are fried equally. In other words, it puffs like crazy and keeps turning, so the only one side is browning all the time.
Experienced cooks who made pączki many times suggest piercing both sides of the doughnut before frying and placing each doughnut bottom side first into the hot oil for the same reason — to control their puffing.
