Paczki Preparations Underway In Hamtramck (Video)

By Edward Cardenas

HAMTRAMCK (CBS Detroit) - It was the calm before the storm Monday at bakeries in Hamtramck and throughout southeastern Michigan in the hours before Fat Tuesday.

While lines were short in the front of area bakeries Monday, staff behind the scenes was hard at work filling early paczki orders and preparing for the crush of customers ordering the sweet confections for one last indulgence before Lent.

Box after box of freshly made paczki were being filled and stacked in the front of New Palace Bakery in Hamtramck where customers picked up pre-orders and walked in to beat the rush.

"Right now we are trying to fulfill our orders and we pretty much just keep making them," said Suzy Ognanovich, whose family has owned the bakery for more than 40 years. "Tomorrow we will be making them all day to keep up with demand.

The Hamtramck area is home to some of the top bakeries for Fat Tuesday, where customers begin lining up before dawn and stand in queues that wrap around the building to purchase the deep-fried Polish treat.

At New Palace, the bakers make the paczki from scratch from an "authentic" recipe that have more eggs and are richer than traditional doughnuts.

Many bakeries and stores on Fat Tuesday offer traditional paczki flavors including apple, blueberry, custard and the popular raspberry. But there are also new additions for 2015.

New Palace is offering a chocolate and marshmallow combination, covered with chocolate and graham cracker crumbs. A second new flavor is chocolate hazelnut combined with butter cream and covered with chocolate hazelnut topping.

"We think about it throughout the year," said Ognanovich. "We ask customers what they like, we talk about it with the girls and create it."

Another unique take on paczki is offered by Peteet's Famous Cheesecake in Oak Park, which offers strawberry, blueberry and margarita cheesecake filled-paczki.