The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
BIAGIO’S READY FOR PACZKI RUSH
Every day is paczki day at Biagio’s Donut Shop and Pizzeria, but never more so than on Fat Tuesday, the day before the start of the long Christian fasting period known as Lent.
This year, Fat Tuesday falls on Feb. 13.
Starting in the wee hours, customers will be lining up at 35475 Vine St. in Eastlake to buy the deep-fried doughnuts of Polish heritage with fillings of many kinds and dustings of powdered sugar, said Biagio’s owner Joey Cappadonna.
“People come here from all over Northeast Ohio to buy our paczki, even Parma,” Cappadonna said, smiling and referring to the west-side suburb of Cleveland with a large Polish-American population.
Cappadonna explained that paczki, pronounced “poonch-key,” isn’t just another doughnut.
“It’s a filled pastry made with flour, eggs, shortening, butter, sugar and our secret ingredients,” Cappadonna said, standing in his bustling business’ work room as a crew of baker’s helpers formed the large balls of paczki dough and laid them out neatly on tables.
While most other bakeries and doughnut shops in Greater Cleveland confine sales of paczki to the days immediately before and after Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, they always are available at Biagio’s.
“So many of our customers want them all the time, we started making them
"It’s a filled pastry made with flour, eggs, shortening, butter, sugar and our secret ingredients." — Joey Cappadonna, owner of Biagio’s
on a daily basis two years ago,” Cappadonna said.
Cappadonna is wellversed in the history of paczki. In the Middle Ages, observant Catholics and others Christians made the pastry to use up their supplies of sugar, butter and eggs in advance of the 40 days of fasting that ensue on Ash Wednesday.
While strict observance of fasting rules is followed by far fewer of even the most pious of believers these days, the parade to bakeries on Fat Tuesday endures as a tradition.
“I really enjoy Fat Tuesday. It’s our busiest day of the year,” Cappadonna said.
There is no getting around the labor-intensive job of making the thousands of paczki that will cross the sales counter at Biagio’s on Feb. 13. However, the process is made somewhat easier by a machine that takes round platters of dough and, after 22 seconds of spinning, turns out neatly formed balls of dough.
The dough balls spend 15 minutes proofing, or rising, before they are ready for the conveyor that carries them through the bath of cooking oil.
Cappadonna said customers typically begin lining up at 3 a.m. on Fat Tuesday to buy paczki.