The day before the Lenten season begins, Carol Bartholomew churns out fasnachts by the dozens from her Palmerton kitchen.

Making the fried treats is a tradition that she’s carried on for almost as long as she can remember.

“I started when I was a small child,” she said.

Bartholomew would help her mother prepare fasnachts made with her great-grandmother’s Pennsylvania Dutch recipe. Ingredients include flour, sugar and eggs. But what sets them apart from a common doughnut are the mashed potatoes added to the dough.

“The tradition was to make them on Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday,” Bartholomew said. “They would collect the lard from what they didn’t use all winter and use up all of that.”

Lard, along with sugars, fats and butters - were among the foods many fasted from - and still do - during Lent. Using the ingredients was a way to empty the pantry of those “rich” foods before the 40-day Christian religious observance.

Fasnacht Day, also known as Doughnut Day or Fat Tuesday, falls on Feb. 13 this year, and is a day to indulge on sugary and rich foods.

Bartholomew explained that she makes the dough the day before Fasnacht Day. She allows it to raise overnight, and kneads it in the morning.

She then rolls out the dough, and cuts them - but not into circles.

“You cut them into triangles,” she explained. “It signifies the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.”

The dough raises for another three to four hours, and is then fried.

“Some fry them in lard. That’s what they used to do years ago,” Bartholomew said.

She, instead, uses Crisco shortening.

“It tastes better,” she believes.

Once they’re fried, she sprinkles them with powdered or granulated. By the time she’s finished, Bartholomew has dozens upon dozens of fasnachts lining a long table.

She can’t deny that they’re delicious, with a texture that’s light and fluffy, thanks to the mashed potatoes.

Thankfully, she gets help from her daughter, Carrie Shafer, and her grandsons, Daniel Shafer, 12, and Joseph Shafer, 11, all of Lehighton.

Generations of dough

Kathy Henderson, of East Penn Township, was a young girl when she began helping her mother, the late Grace (Steigerwalt) Fogel, prepare fasnachts.

She uses a recipe passed down for generations.

“It was my great-great grandmother’s,” who was Pennsylvania Dutch, Henderson explained.

But unlike Bartholomew’s recipe, Henderson’s doesn’t contain yeast or mashed potatoes. She uses sour cream, sour milk, salt, sugar, baking soda, egg and flour.

Henderson fries the fasnachts once they’re rolled out and cut.

“Many people have different ways of eating them. Our favorite way was to slice them in half and toast them very lightly, and then put King’s Syrup - it’s like a sweet table molasses - on the top while they’re warm,” she explained. “Then we dunk them in hot mint tea.”

Her husband, however, prefers them sprinkled in sugar.

Henderson plans to teach her son and daughter-in-law how to make fasnachts. She is sharing other Pennsylvania Dutch recipes through a book she compiled for her brother.

“It has all my mom’s recipes,” she said of Fogel, who passed away in 2020. “Most of them are Pennsylvania Dutch things she used to do” such as elderberry wine, wet bottom shoo fly pie and Moravian tarts.

Church tradition

Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Palmerton held fasnacht sales annually for years.

“My grandmother (the late Lizzie Shupp) taught them her recipe,” said Larry Arner of Palmerton.

The fasnacht sale was a decades-long tradition at the church and easily dated back to the 1950s, when Arner was just a boy.

“I used to run around at the church when they were making them,” he said.

The volunteers continued well after Arner grew up, and while recently tidying the church, he spotted an old newspaper clipping.

Dated February of 1972, it features photographs of Fasnacht Day sales.

Arner would eventually learn his grandmother’s fasnacht recipe, and makes them each year at his Palmerton home.

“My mom used to make them, and one day I said, ‘Doughnut Day is coming up,’” Arner said, “and she said, ‘I’m not making them anymore.’”

Arner asked her to teach him.

He grabbed a video camera and filmed as his mother walked him through the steps.

Now he’s good for 15 to 18 dozen a year. He, too, uses potatoes in the recipe.

He’ll eat a few, and freeze some to eat at another time.

The rest he gives away to friends and family near and far.

Some will find their way to cousins in North Carolina and Tennessee, and a brother in South Carolina.

While fasnachts are once a year for him, Arner has thought about making cinnamon buns with the same basic recipe.

“I keep saying I will do it,” he said.