ANN ARBOR – Whether you call it Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras or Paczki Day, there’s one treat Michiganders crave on the day before Lent — the puffy Polish pastry known as paczki.
Each year, bakeries around the state, particularly in Polish immigrant communities like Hamtramck, spend all night crafting the rich, fluffy fried pastry that’s been adopted as a Midwestern tradition.
Ann Arbor’s Zingerman’s Bakehouse offers a full menu of paczki just one day a year, preparing more than 4,000 sweet pastries with fillings like chocolate, lemon cream, raspberry, sweet ricotta and rose hip jam.
Production manager Nina Plasencia says raspberry and lemon cream flavors are the most popular, with chocolate, ricotta, and rose hip following…