Walk into Rudy’s Strudel and Bakery on 5580 Ridge Road in Parma and you’ll smell the fresh dough and fragrant chocolate fudge and toffee filling—the aromas of all the makings for a new paczki flavor creation made in a partnership between Rudy’s and Malley’s Chocolates.

You’ll find the pastry inside Rudy’s bakery case, adorned with Malley’s signature green and pink colors in the powdered sugar topping.

Tom Mroczka and the Music Box greeted customers with live polka music last week.It looks like a super donut with Cleveland flair—but never call it a donut.

So what’s a paczki? And what’s behind this one-of-a-kind version?

“A donut is casual—a paczki is intentional,” says Rudy’s co-owner Lidia Trempe. “We’re talking about a tradition carried on from the Middle Ages." Trempe says she hopes patrons will stop by to indulge before the beginning of Lent.

“Before Lent, you had to get rid of everything that was tempting,” she explains, which would include the paczkis. But before giving up temptation Trempe says she hopes people will consider a Rudy’s tradition since 1948—putting a modern twist on classic ethnic bakery.

“A paczki is a perfect package—it's delicious and fun,” she quips, “like a party in your hand.”

Trempe says the paczki has quadruple the filling of a donut. There’s five times more butter and eggs, too, and it’s fried longer and is heavier.

Pair that indulgence with Malley’s 91-year history of crafting chocolate and other sweet temptations, and you get a paczki that is the quintessential example of these two favorite Cleveland staple businesses.

Malley’s and Rudy’s paczki is made up of a perfect combination of the two companies’ fortes.

Malley’s makes the filling with rich chocolate fudge, layered with barley malt, sprinkled with a touch of sea salt to cut the sweetness a bit, for the taste of chocolate-covered toffee with a buttery crunch.

The filling is folded into the pastry that was perfected by Rudy’s generations ago. Each year, Rudy’s makes 100,000 paczkis in a variety of flavors to celebrate on Fat Tuesday.

“It’s my favorite paczki flavor the bakery has ever done," says Trempe. “Malley’s wrapped in a Rudy’s paczki is the most Cleveland thing ever!”

The confectioners and bakers at the two companies didn’t land on the fudge and toffee filling right away, but they had fun playing with different flavors before they found the perfect Malley’s combination for the filling. They say they knew they wanted a bit of crunch, but pretzels became too soggy when in the chocolate filling. Luckily, Rudy’s and Malley’s are just seven minutes away from one another.

Malley’s president Megan Gillum says she loves Trempe’s energy and how natural the joint effort felt.

“It was exciting—[Trempe] would drop off something, and we’d try it and give feedback,” Gillum recalls. “She’d come right back in a few hours with more fillings to try. It was incredible and intentional to think about what products our customers really love.”

It wasn’t just the filling Trempe was working on, though, she had bigger plans.

A paczki tower at Malley's.“I thought I could just buy loads of green and pink powdered sugar,” says Trempe. “Nope!” Instead, taking Malley’s branding seriously, Trempe picked up some color swatches and got to work testing them—ultimately finding the right shades for the powdered sugar.

Trempe says she knew the finished product needed to be one that Clevelanders would connect with in every bite.

The paczki made its debut on Wednesday, Jan. 14 at Malley’s Brook Park headquarters, 13400 Brookpark Road. Customers started streaming in at 9 a.m. to celebrate the start of paczki season and sample the hundreds of the green and pink chocolate-and-toffee-filled special edition paczkis that were available, first come, first served, while Tom Mroczka and the Music Box played polka music.

The Malley’s Paczkis then went on sale to the public last Thursday, Jan. 15, exclusively at Rudy’s, for $3.45 each. Store hours vary, and though Trempe says their staff members are baking around the clock, the high demand means the paczkis are available each day while supplies last.

If you miss out the first try, a second trip to an authentic Eastern European bakery doesn’t sound so bad, right? Especially when you know the people running it value community and collaboration.

“There are a lot of traditions steeped in both brands, so this is an exciting opportunity that’s uniquely Cleveland and feels celebratory,” explains Gillum.

The partnership between the two Cleveland staple businesses came about organically at a City Club of Cleveland Forum in September 2025.

Trempe spotted Mike Malley in the audience and talk turned to possibly creating hybrid product. She admits she was a little Cleveland star struck.

“He’s like Mick Jagger or Willy Wonka!” exclaims Trempe.

Malley, a board member and recently retired CEO of the chocolate brand, introduced Trempe to Gillum, who took over as Malley’s president last year, so they could kick off the paczki brainstorming process. The rest is tasty Cleveland history in the making.

“What a privilege it is that we get to serve Cleveland,” gushes Trempe “This paczki is our love letter to the city.”