Melissa Roberti isn’t crazy about cooking, but she sure loves to make sweet treats.

She grew up in Wind Gap and moved to Saylorsburg when she got married, but somehow had never tasted fasnachts.

Roberti knew of the Pennsylvania Dutch tradition for Shrove Tuesday.

The powdered pastry symbolizes the final treat before Christians abstain from certain luxuries like rich, sugary, and fatty foods during the 40 days of Lent.

Rather than risk the eggs, lard, butter and sugar in their pantries spoiling and going to waste, the Pennsylvania Dutch cooked up fasnachts to use up those ingredients and enjoy one last treat before the fasting period was set to begin.

Roberti wanted to try them for herself.

“I just decided to do it,” Roberti said. About eight years ago, she looked up a recipe on the internet. Her four kids were young and eager to help.

Now, they range in age from 13 to 22 and they are too busy.

In the beginning she made plain fasnachts, but the past few years she added mashed potatoes, which made a world of difference.

The process takes about 11 hours, with three periods to rise the dough, frying and the final topping of sugar.

Roberti, an instructional aide at Lincoln Leadership Academy Charter School, was fortunate to have Monday off for Presidents Day. She started prepping Sunday night, mixing up the mashed potatoes and adding sugar, potato water, flour, yeast and sugar.

Roberti used to bake bread so she has the knack for working with yeast. The water has to be warm but not too hot.

This time it wasn’t warm enough and she had to dump it and start over.

“Normally the first step has to rise for several hours,” she said. This time she let it rise overnight.

In the second phase she added lukewarm milk, sugar, melted butter and more flour.

It had to raise for two hours before she rolled it out and cut the doughnuts.

Again, they had to rise several hours.

“I’ll be frying them around dinner time,” she said Monday afternoon. “It’s such a process.”

Roberti uses either vegetable or canola oil — whatever she has on hand. She said it doesn’t make a difference in the delicious outcome.

She’ll top them in powdered sugar, regular sugar and cinnamon sugar. But some are just eaten plain.

One year her son filled some with cream.

Then the eating begins. One of her children is on gluten-free diets and is away from home. Her husband, Neil, is certainly a fan, but the recipe makes 30 to 40 doughnuts. She figures she’ll have plenty to take to school for the kids.

With working full time in Allentown, she doesn’t have a lot of time to cook on weeknights. But she does have some specialties.

Every year she makes a family recipe for her mom’s birthday. The dish was handed down from her great aunt Eleanor, who lived through the Great Depression. She was 98 when she died in 2010.

The recipe, called Missouri, has ground beef, potatoes, onions and carrots, topped with tomato soup or sauce. It’s a family favorite. Both her great aunt and grandmother made it, but no one knows where the name or recipe originated. Roberti compares it to Cowboy Stew.

Roberti also makes her own vodka sauce to top pasta and makes a mean chili.

Her peanut butter chocolate balls are a New Year’s Eve tradition.

“My kids say they have to have the Rice Krispies,” she said.

As for the fasnachts, Roberti said that if they are in a sealed container they could last for several days. But they are usually gobbled up way before then.