Get these special Mardi Gras doughnuts for one week only at this Puget Sound chain

Say “poonch-key” to someone who knows what pączki are, and you’ll receive an understanding nod, especially in regions not dense with Polish families.

Say it to, oh, a dozen doughnut shops throughout the South Sound, and you’re lucky if the listener replies with an honest, “I have no idea.”

Take it from a former Midwesterner: Pączki Day is a thing. Here in Pierce and south King County, one of the only places to relish these pre-Lenten delights is at Legendary Doughnuts.

As the story goes, Polish Christians long ago needed a way to eliminate all butter, lard and jam from the house before Lent. Mardi Gras wouldn’t cut it. They needed days, and thus the Thursday before Ash Wednesday — the first of those fateful 40 days — became, unofficially but in some neighborhoods very much officially, Pączki Day.

These doughnuts differ from the typical cake doughnut in that they add milk, which morphs them into more of a brioche compared to the squishy fluff of America’s typical jelly-filled fare. They tend to call for more sugar and more fat, usually butter. Honest versions also add alcohol, either a Polish grain spirit or rum. Traditional fillings include Eastern European mainstays like plum or rosehip jam.

At Legendary, owner Shannon Patten sticks with raspberry, apple, lemon and sweet cream. On the outside, they can be glazed or rolled in powdered sugar or cinnamon sugar.

“The alcohol stops the absorption of fat into the grease — into the doughnut,” Patten explained to The News Tribune. “Rum imparts its own flavor as well. We put our own little twist on it.”

A customer — the same woman who asked Legendary to make pączki in the first place — suggested the rum. She was of Polish heritage, and she told Patten her family missed the doughnuts and they were near impossible to find outside Seattle and Kirkland, where Viola’s Polish Bakery churns out pączki year-round.

“She brought me one; she might’ve made it. So we decided, well, we could do this,” said Patten, adding that many of Legendary’s experiments start with customer requests.

Legendary, which opened its first location in Auburn 10 years ago, introduced them in 2018. Now, each of the chain’s seven shops (four with bakeries, including the Tacoma location, that feed the other three) offer pączki for six days before Mardi Gras. This year that’s Feb. 19 to Feb. 25, with last orders accepted on Feb. 24.

When I asked if customers recognized them or inquired, Patten said awareness still lags, but sales have grown every year.

“During that week, we replace our traditional filled donuts with pączki almost as a forced, ‘Here, try this,’” she said.

Training the employees helps, too. Many have called her to say, “Oh my god, I ate the whole thing!”

That’s unusual, she added, because when you work at a doughnut shop, “You’re not eating a whole doughnut every day.”

She recommends ordering ahead if you want to guarantee a taste ($2.99 per pączki, or $28 per dozen). Choose your fillings and coatings to your heart’s content: “The bakers can do anything,” said Patten.

As for how to pronounce it, some people say “pawnch-key,” others “poonch-key.” We commiserated over our attempts.

“I’ve been corrected both ways,” she told me.

Legendary lists the phonetic spelling on its signage to assist customers and employees alike.

Legendary Doughnuts

▪ Tacoma: 2602 6th Ave., 253-327-1327

▪ Puyallup: 5604 176th St. E., 253-271-7174

▪ Orting: 212 Washington Ave. S., Orting, 360-872-0517

▪ Federal Way: 32079 Pacific Highway S., 206-460-5942

▪ Lakeland Hills/Auburn: 1410 Lake Tapps Parkway E., 253-736-0036

▪ Hours: Sunday-Thursday, 5 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Friday-Saturday 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. Orting opens at 7 a.m. on Sundays.

▪ Details: pączki available Feb. 19 to Feb. 25; last orders accepted on Feb. 24

This story was originally published February 20, 2020 at 5:00 AM.