Patch Paczki Patrol: The Taste Test

What could go wrong with eating a bunch of delicious pastries?

Nothing catastrophic, but to say that your fearless Patch editors were feeling a little less than 100 percent after eating the equivalent of about three paczkis apiece would be an understatement. But again, they were delicious. Just don't make them your dinner.

Tinley Park Editor Paul Dailing, Oak Forest Editor Lauren Traut, Palos Editor Dan Lambert and myself decided to dive head first into the Polish pastries, sampling 11 different kinds of paczki to determine which we thought were the best. We tried simple, traditional versions such as almond and prune, before venturing into the more experimental—such as a paczki garnished with bacon. No, I'm not kidding.

Our test samples came from Baumann's Bakery in Palos Heights, as well as Creative Cakes and Zettlmeir's bakeries both in Tinley Park. We tried for pastries from the , but alas, the line was just too long. This is serious business and we had no time to lollygag. Fat Tuesday must be done fattily, right?

We tested the traditionals from Baumann's and Zettlmeir's on a 1-10 scale, 10 being the best, in three areas: the inside, the outside and whether it included bacon. The B's are paczkis from Baumann's whereas the Z's are from Zettlmeir's.

Sadly, the traditionals all get 0 for the bacon portion, or lack-there-of.

I: 9 O:9

I: 9 O:9

I: 7 O:7

The final call:

• Paul has a two-way tie with Baumann's Creme and Zettlmeier's Raspberry at 18 points each.
• Lauren also had a two-way tie with Baumann's Creme and Zettlmeier's Almond at 16 points each.
• Dan chose Baumann's Lemon as his number one at 16 points.
• I chose Baumann's Creme at 18 points.

Now comes the weird ones. Creative Cakes certainly lived up to their namesake with their bizzare, whimsical and childlike paczki. Rather than assign points, we tried four and picked our favorite.

Our choices were Atomic Mash-Up, Turtle (the chocolate-carmel, not the reptile), Maple Bacon (with a slice of bacon on top) and Oh Captain My Captain (a mixture of Captain Morgan Rum and Cap'n Crunch breakfast cereal).

Paul, Dan and I chose the Maple Bacon as our Best of Weird, while Lauren opted for the Turtle, which was a very close second in my opinion. But the bacon was like eating a pancake, covered in syrup, covered in bacon, in a doughnut-like form.

Truly awesome.

This test is not for the faint of heart. Make sure you can handle an extreme sugar buzz, followed by the just-as-extreme crash and stomach ache.

Maybe next year we'll opt for the New Orleans style Fat Tuesday and just eat some jambalaya.

Patch Editors Lauren Traut and Paul Dailing contributed to this report.