TRADITIONAL TREATS
Bethel Bakery is preparing thousands of orders of the popular paczki pastry ahead of the start of Lent
At Bethel Bakery, part of the allure of the deliciously deep-fried paczki is that there is a short window for customers to get their hands on one — or a dozen.
The family-owned business in Bethel Park only serves the paczki, a donutlike Polish pastry with sweet filings like custard, cream, or jam, from January through St. Patrick’s Day on March 17.
The pastries reach the height of their popularity at the bakery around Mardi Gras, French for “Fat Tuesday,” when they were traditionally made with a family’s extra fat and sugar before Lent — the six-week fasting period leading up to Easter.
Stephen Walsh, the owner of the business his grandfather started in 1955, said he will usually sell an average of up to 5,000 of the pastries per week during paczki season, but expects to sell over 6,000 on Monday and Tuesday alone this week.
“Whenever there is a scarcity to something, it always draws customers in,” said Mr. Walsh. “I think what makes them special are that they are limited.”
Mr. Walsh said he expects this year’s Fat Tuesday to be the bakery’s busiest to date.
“This year’s probably going to be the biggest one,” he said. “I think every year it just gets bigger. More and more people become familiar with it and once they become familiar it becomes something they look forward to every year.”
Other bakeries across the region have also been offering specials for the holiday, including at Giant Eagle locations, where king cakes will be on sale through Tuesday.
King cakes — a cake traditionally topped with the traditional Mardi Gras colors of purple, green, and yellow — have become a long-standing tradition for the grocery chain and its customers, Giant Eagle spokesman Dan Donovan said.
“We have sold king cakes in our Giant Eagle bakeries for decades,” Mr. Donovan said. “Throughout this time, they have consistently been popular with many customers throughout Western Pennsylvania and other regions we serve.”
Mr. Walsh said it takes about two and a half minutes in the deep fryer to make two dozen paczki, so can be challenging to keep up with the demand as thousands of orders come in over the course of just two days.
“You can’t hurry the process,” He said. “So you got somebody at the fryer basically all day.”
Mr. Walsh said the most popular flavor this far this year has been the fresh strawberry-filled paczki, although many customers were also anticipating the lemon filling, which Bethel Bakery traditionally unveils during the week of Fat Tuesday.
Up until a few years ago, the window for customers to get their hands on Bethel Bakery’s paczki was even smaller.
In the past, the bakery stopped making paczki on Fat Tuesday, but they extended the sale until St. Patrick’s Day in 2021.
“The way that Easter falls, you might only get a few weeks of paczki in a year, and customers just want them more than a couple weeks out of the year,” Mr. Walsh said.
Mr. Walsh said he has not considered serving up paczki year round, although the bakery has also brought them back for National Donut Day, which falls on the first Friday of June.
“I don’t think we’ve ever thought about bringing them on all the time. That’s part of what makes them special,” he said.