Paczki is a traditional Polish pastry filled with a sweet center. Usually fried, this recipe is baked to soft, golden perfection.
Jump to RecipeLast year, we had Harry Potter Club monthly and made many delicious recipes based on the books and movies. We ended the marathon by watching Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them a week before seeing Crimes of Grindelwald in theaters. Jacob’s dream is to open his own Polish Bakery, I decided to try making some of the pastries that he mentions. One such pastry is Paczki, a type of Polish doughnut.
Pączki are deep-fried pieces of dough shaped into flattened spheres and filled with confiture or
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%85czkiother sweet filling . Pączki are usually covered with powdered sugar, icing, glaze or bits of dried orange zest.
Traditional Paczki (pronounced pontch-kee) are fried. But I don’t like frying foods often. I hate the oil popping on me. So when I found a recipe that instructed to bake, rather than fry, I decided to give it a shot.
The doughnuts came out so soft and fluffy. The hardest part was filling the paczki, but they would honestly be delicious even without a filling in them.
You’ll need about two hours to make the paczki, but half of that is letting the dough rise. Then the doughnuts will bake for about 10 minutes per batch.
The last thing to do is put the filling in the paczki. In my opinion, this is the hardest part. I have a plastic cake decorating tool that I was able to use. I put the flavored jam in the tube and used the long thin tip to press into the center of the doughnut and push the jam inside. It isn’t perfect, but it works pretty well.
You can use any flavor of jam that you prefer. The first time we made these I used up some orange marmalade from when we made Orange Chicken. The second time we used blackberry since that’s our favorite. You could also fill with custard or any other sweet filling.

Paczki Step by Step
Ingredients
Dough
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 2 tsp active dry yeast
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2/3 cup milk
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 2 egg yolks
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Topping
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
Filling
- 1 cup jam
Preparation
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the sugar, salt, yeast, and 1 1/2 cups of flour.

In a small saucepan, warm the milk over medium until it reaches about 110F. Pour the warm milk, oil, egg yolks, and vanilla extract into the large mixing bowl with the dry ingredients. Use an electric mixer and whisk on high for 2 minutes. Slowly stir in the remaining 1/4 cup of flour, as needed, until the dough comes together. I switched to the dough hook for this part.
Lightly flour a clean work surface and knead the dough about 50 times. Cover the dough with a towel and let it rest for about 10 minutes. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat.

Roll the dough out to about 1/2 inch thick.

Use a 2 1/2 inch round cutter to make circles in the dough then place on the prepared pan.

Re-roll the scraps and continue until all of the dough is used. Cover the dough with a clean, dry dishtowel and let it rise for about one hour.
Preheat the oven to 375F. Bake the doughnuts for about 10 minutes, until they are just starting to turn golden and puff up.

Melt the butter and place the sugar for coating on a shallow plate. As soon as the doughnuts come out of the oven, brush with the melted butter. Flip each doughnut over and roll the tops in the sugar to coat.

Place the coated doughnuts on a wire cooling rack to let cool slightly before filling. Fill a pastry bag or cake decorator with your choice of jam flavor. Gently push the tip into each doughnut and squeeze to fill.

Serve immediately as these taste best when they are fresh and still warm.

Paczki Leftovers
Storage: Store leftover Polish doughnuts in an airtight container at room temperature for 1-2 days.

Recipe
Originally Published On: January 20, 2019
Last Updated On: July 1, 2023

Paczki: Polish Doughnuts
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 2 tsp active dry yeast
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2/3 cup milk
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 2 egg yolks
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup jam
Recommended Equipment
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the sugar, salt, yeast, and 1 1/2 cups of flour
- In a small saucepan, warm the milk over medium until it reaches about 110F
- Pour the warm milk, oil, egg yolks, and vanilla extract into the large mixing bowl with the dry ingredients
- Use an electric mixer and whisk on high for 2 minutes
- Slowly stir in the remaining 1/4 cup of flour, as needed, until the dough comes together
- Lightly flour a clean work surface and knead the dough about 50 times
- Cover the dough with a clean, dry towel and let it rest for about 10 minutes
- Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone mat
- Roll the dough out to about 1/2 inch thick
- Use a 2 1/2 inch round-cutter to make circles in the dough then place on the prepared pan
- Re-roll the scraps and continue until all of the dough is used
- Cover the dough with a clean, dry dish towel and let it rise for about one hour
- Preheat the oven to 375F. Bake the doughnuts for about 10 minutes, until they are just starting to turn golden and puff up
- Melt the butter and place the sugar for coating on a shallow plate
- As soon as the doughnuts come out of the oven, brush with the melted butter
- Flip each doughnut over and roll the tops in the sugar to coat
- Place the coated doughnuts on a wire cooling rack to let cool slightly before filling
- Fill a pastry bag or cake decorator with your choice of jam flavor. Gently push the tip into each doughnut and squeeze to fill
- Serve immediately as these taste best when they are fresh and still warm
All nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered estimates. Actual nutrition content will vary based on brands used, measuring methods, portion sizes, and more.
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Thank you so much for sharing this recipe! I would love to try it for my family ! these doughnuts look so good!
They are amazing! I’ve made them a few times and haven’t met someone who doesn’t like it!
Oh hubba hubba! I friggin’ ADOREEEEEE donuts!! I can’t eat them unless I make them myself with specific ingredients. BUT that doesn’t mean I can’t DROOL over these babies!
That’s why I like making them myself, too, I control the ingredients. When my friend with dairy allergy comes over, we use vegan butter so she can eat them as well.
GIVE. ME. THOSE. Those are one of my FAVORITE donuts. I hate when they make donuts that are like them but put frosting on top. So icky.
I couldn’t imagine these with frosting. I mean, I love a good frosted doughnut, but I don’t think it would work well with this type of doughnut!
These look absolutely amazing. I can’t wait to con my baker friend into making these!!
Haha, you can tell your baker friend that they really aren’t too hard to make, they just need some time!
Awesome! I love making donuts and I usually bake them so I tend to stay away from filled ones because they’re typically fried. So happy to find out I can bake them too 🙂 Cannot wait to try this!
I understand! I don’t eat a lot of fried foods, either, so it was good to find a way to bake the doughnuts instead.
Being of Polish background I LOVE paczki. Never knew you could bake them. I’ll have to try this recipe to see how it turns out.
I’ve made them twice now, they were so good! This was the first time I had heard of paczki. I was searching for Polish danishes for our movie night because of Jacob Kowalski and came across this idea. So glad I did!
So let me get this straight, you found this recipe online? 1) looks YUM!!! want to try!!! 2) FWIW, Kimmie got an “official Harry Potter Cookbook” for Xmas, so I wonder if there is anything like this in there???
I have that cookbook on my list to get!! I doubt this would be in there since it’s from Fantastic Beasts and I’m pretty sure that book was written before the movies were released.
I’ve had those donoughts before and they are delicious. I can see why now… So labor intensive to make.
They aren’t too much work, they just take a lot of time because of them needing to rest for so long.
Delicious and easy to make. I love them.
You’re right, so delicious!