Polish Tradition In The Midwest: Pączki Day
Pączki Day is a tradition with a history almost as rich as the treat itself. Pączki are dense, cake-like donuts that are fried, filled with jam or custard, and covered in powdered sugar. It is a centuries-old Polish Catholic tradition still celebrated today in both Poland and the United States. This will be the eleventh year that Argus Farm Stop participates in the tradition. Employees of the farm stop spend the morning of Pączki Day covering themselves in powdered sugar as they package over three thousand pączki for Ann Arbor residents to enjoy. The pączki are baked and delivered to us by Crust Bakery, located in Fenton, Michigan. The bakery bakes at least eight thousand pączki each year, and have maintained their own Pączki Day tradition since 2014.
Pączki Day dates back to the medieval century, when Polish Catholics would rid their kitchens of dense foods or ingredients in preparation for Lent, a forty-day period of fasting, penitence, and reflection leading up to the celebration of Easter. The Thursday before Lent began, people would empty their cabinets of eggs, milk, sugar, butter, lard, and jam, and would make fried treats with the ingredients so the food would not go to waste. The most notable treat that came from this in Poland was the pączek (plural pączki). The twentieth century saw a large influx of Polish populations in the Midwest and Eastern regions of the United States, and with that came the sweet treat and tradition. Many Polish immigrants settled in Detroit, Hamtramck, and Grand Rapids, which is why the day is widely celebrated here in Michigan. In the Polish-American tradition, bakeries and parishes bake pączki for their communities on the Tuesday before Lent instead of the Thursday before, since the day coincided with an already established Catholic American tradition—Fat Tuesday.
Argus Farm Stop has been selling Crust Bakery’s pączki since the farm stop started in 2014. Alex Blume of Argus Farm Stop recently spoke with Chad Brennan, the owner of Crust Bakery, to get more insight into the bakery’s history and how they prepare for Pączki Day.
Delicious pastries offered from Crust Bakery
Crust Bakery opened in February 2012, when Chad and his brother-in-law needed a way to supply their restaurant with breads and pastries. Chad and his wife, Mary Beth, decided to expand into the food industry once they realized their passion for it. They traveled to different bakeries around the world, with Chad’s favorite being the “old-world” bakeries in Montreal, which inspired their bakery’s current style.
It only took two years from them opening their bakery for Chad and Mary Beth to decide to participate in Pączki Day. After receiving feedback and encouragement from customers, they decided to bake a small batch of pączki in 2014 as a trial run. This ended up being wildly successful, and the bakery made it to the Channel 5 News. The excitement and publicity of the event cemented the importance of the tradition for Chad and Mary Beth, and from that year on, the bakery has participated in Pączki Day. Today, they prepare thousands of pączki in various flavors for their customers, in addition to preparing their famous king cakes.
As Chad puts it, pączki are an “affordable luxury and an indulgence that most people normally wouldn’t do.” In an increasingly busy world where families might not find the time to prepare pączki themselves, Crust Bakery and Argus Farm Stop offer a local, affordable alternative as well as a third space to meet with friends and neighbors. The treat itself is delicious and most notably worth celebrating for the fact that it brings the community together. To Chad, the tradition is not just about the food, it’s about the conversations and camaraderie that come from it as people talk about the diets they’re going to go on and what they plan to “give up” for Lent.
Crust Bakery’s customers get excited each year to find out which flavors they plan to prepare and how they can order them. The bakery sells strawberry, raspberry, lemon, prune, and chocolate-cayenne through Argus Farm Stop, with some additional flavors that can be purchased directly from Crust. This marks the first year Argus Farm Stop features the prune pączek, which is a more traditional pączki flavor. Chad’s personal favorite flavor, although he’s “not supposed to have favorites,” is the chocolate-cayenne.
Chad, Mary Beth, and the bakers find that it’s most important to serve the pączki fresh, so they bake everything the day before Pączki Day instead of preparing and selling the treat weeks in advance (as many major grocers do). As with all of their other baked goods, Crust ensures the pączki are made with the highest quality ingredients. The bakery prepares over eight thousand donuts each year, with Argus Farm Stop accounting for about half of their production. Last year, they made 8,364, using about 240 pounds of dough.
Crust begins the baking process at around noon the day prior to Pączki Day.
They start by making the dough from scratch, scaling and weighing it out. They then begin baking the donuts, working through the night until they are done about twelve to thirteen hours later. Their first delivery is to Argus Farm Stop. They send their truck filled to the brim with pączki, and the driver has a key so they can drop them off early in the morning before driving back to Fenton to pick up the rest of their deliveries. The production is non-stop until they make their deliveries at 3 A.M.
Shortly after the pączki are delivered, the managers at Argus Farm Stop begin packaging them. The crew comes into each store between 5 and 5:30 A.M. to package and label each box individually for every customer that ordered online. They also package additional boxes, categorized by flavor, to sell to customers in store the day of. On average, we package about 3,000 pączki, with 2024 being a record year for sales at 3,310 pączki (and 30 king cakes)!
About a month prior to Pączki Day, Argus Farm Stop’s team prepares by offering pączki for sale at each location on our website. Crust Bakery’s deadline for ordering these pączki is the Wednesday before Pączki Day, while Argus Farm Stop’s cut off time for online pączki orders is at noon on the Sunday before. This means that by Crust Bakery’s deadline, the managers at Argus Farm Stop have to “work some magic” across stores in order to estimate the number of pączki that will be sold between that Wednesday and Sunday, and order the donuts accordingly. It is a challenging task, since the amount people order varies from year to year. The managers also need to account for any mishaps in orders and the amount that will be sold in store the day of, so they try to order an extra three to five dozen per store. As Meg Goldwyn (Argus Farm Stop’s operating manager) puts it, it is “the magic eight ball of pastry ordering.”
In order to reduce waste and sell as many pączki as possible, Argus Farm Stop does something called a “pączki swap.” Argus Farm Stop’s “pączki shuffler” drives the treats back and forth between Argus’s three locations in order to sell everything the day of. The reason Argus Farm Stop only sells pączki for one day is because they harden and become stale the day after they have been baked. They are best enjoyed the same day they are prepared, when they are still soft, yet dense and packed with flavor.
You can pre-order pączki on Argus Farm Stop’s website until noon on February 15, the Sunday prior to Pączki Day. There are five delicious flavors to choose from, including lemon, raspberry, strawberry, chocolate cayenne, and prune. Argus Farm Stop will also be selling a limited amount of pączki for you to purchase in store on Pączki Day. We hope to see you at one of our locations on February 17 to partake in the fun tradition, enjoy a pączek with your morning coffee, and converse with friends and neighbors. Alternatively, you can visit Chad and the team at Crust Bakery in Fenton on Pączki Day. They will be offering three additional flavors—cream, mango, and caramel apple—as well as their king cakes and cherry crumb pies.
Chad will also be putting out his own post for Pączki Day that more deeply divulges into the history of the day itself, dating back to the rule of Polish King August III. If you are interested in the history of the day, or generally interested in staying up to date on news related to Crust Bakery, you can subscribe here.