July’s
bread challenge shares a bit of my background and heritage: kolache, the (mostly) sweet Czech
pastry. Growing up, we had family
friends, originally from the Chicago area, with whom we spent a fair amount of
time. Occasionally, their Grandma would come
to visit from Chicago, and the family would celebrate with a feast. She was very old-school – didn’t speak
English and baked without measuring anything.
Her dumplings were sublime, and her kolache were just as delicious.
Many
Czech immigrants settled in the central United States, from Illinois down to
Texas. My relatives started out in
Illinois, and made their way to Ohio, Nebraska, and Iowa, and eventually to
California. Immigrants who ended up in
Texas created a kolache variation that used sausage instead of a sweeter
filling.
Originating
in central Europe, kolache are a type of semisweet pastry, made from a puffy
yeast dough, and filled with cream cheese/farmers cheese, fruit jams, poppy
seeds, or, in the case of the Texas version, sausage. Sizes range from sweet roll-size to
cookie-size. There is usually a crumb
topping as well.
For
my filling, I used farmers cheese that I had leftover from a previous
bake. I’ve included that recipe, and,
even though I only made half a recipe, I had filling left over. I also had some of the crumb topping left
over, so you can adjust accordingly.
I’ve included some links for traditional fillings, but, certainly you
can choose to be creative.
This
particular recipe comes from Sarah Kieffer’s website, The Vanilla Bean Blog,
but I’ve included other websites as well that have slight variations. I stored the leftover kolache in the
refrigerator, and they reheated very nicely in my toaster oven.
I
hope you enjoy this festive bread, and I look forward to seeing all the
creative variations that you bake! If you wish to join the Babes as a buddy, share your post with me by July 29th at jahunt22 at gmail dot com.
Homemade Kolaches
Servings: 16 kolaches
Prep Time: 50 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Ingredients
Dough
- 3 1/2 cups (491g) all-purpose flour
- 2 1/4 teaspoons instant or rapid-rise yeast
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 1 cup
whole milk
- 10 tablespoons
unsalted butter, melted
- 1/3 cup
(66g) sugar
- 1 large
egg plus 2 large yolks
Cream cheese filling
- 12 ounces
(340g) cream cheese, softened
- 1/2 cup
(100g) sugar
- 1 tablespoon
all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon
pure vanilla extract
- Pinch salt
- 1-2 teaspoons
lemon juice
Streusel
- 2 tablespoons
plus 2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons
plus 2 teaspoons sugar
- 1 tablespoon
(15g) unsalted butter, cut into 8
pieces and chilled
Instructions
For the dough
·
Whisk flour, yeast, and salt together in bowl of
stand mixer. Whisk milk, melted butter, sugar, egg, and egg yolks in a 4-cup
measuring cup until sugar has dissolved. Using a dough hook on low speed,
slowly add milk mixture to flour mixture and mix until cohesive dough starts to
form and now dry flour remains, about 2 minutes, scraping down the sides as
needed. Increase speed to medium-low and knead until dough is smooth and
elastic and clears sides of bowl but still sticks to bottom, 8 to 12 minutes.
·
Transfer dough to a well-floured counter. Using
your well-floured hands, knead dough to form a smooth, round ball, about 30
seconds. Place dough seam side down in a lightly greased large bowl, and cover
tightly with plastic wrap. Let rise until doubled in size, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
(Unrisen dough can be refrigerated for at least 8 hours or up to 16 hours; let
dough sit at room temperature for 1 hour before shaping.)
Make the filling
·
Using stand mixer fitted with paddle, beat cream
cheese, sugar, flour, vanilla, and salt on low speed until smooth, about 1
minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add 1 teaspoon of lemon juice, and
mix to combine. Taste filling – you are looking for the lemon juice to brighten
the filling, but not make it taste like lemon. Add more juice if needed.
Transfer to bowl, cover with plastic, and refrigerate until ready to use.
Make the streusel
·
Combine flour, sugar, and butter in bowl and rub
between fingers until mixture resembles wet sand. Cover with plastic and
refrigerate until ready to use.
Finish the dough
·
Line 2 rimmed baking sheets with
parchment paper. Punch down dough and place on lightly floured counter. Stretch
the dough into an even 16-inch log. Cut the log into 16 equal pieces (about 2
1/4 ounce each) and cover loosely with greased plastic. Working one piece of
dough at a time (keep remaining pieces covered), form into rough ball by
stretching dough around your thumbs and pinching edges together so that the top
is smooth. Place the ball seam side down on a clean counter and, using your
cupped hand, drag in small circles until dough feels taut and round.
·
Arrange dough balls seam side down
on prepared sheets, spaced about 1 1/2 inches apart. Cover loosely with greased
plastic and let rise until increased in size by about half, 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
·
Adjust oven racks to upper-middle
and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 350F degrees. Grease and flour
bottom of a round 1/3-cup dry measuring cup. Press the cup firmly into the
center of each dough round until the cup touches the sheet to make indentation
for filling. (Reflour the cup as needed to prevent sticking.)
·
Divide filling evenly among kolaches
(about 1 1/2 tablespoons each) and smooth with the back of a spoon. Whisk
together 1 large egg, lightly beaten with 1 tablespoon water and pinch salt.
Gently brush the edges with egg mixture and sprinkle with streusel. (Do not
sprinkle streusel over filling.)
·
Bake until golden brown, 20-25
minutes, switching and rotating sheets halfway though baking. Transfer kolaches
to wire rack and let cool for 20 minutes. Serve warm.
Notes
*Recipe adapted from Bread Illustrated.
*If your dough is not clearing the sides of the bowl after
mixing, add 1 tablespoon of flour at a time until it does so (every time I’ve
made this I’ve had to add 2-4 tablespoons extra of flour).
*You can sub ricotta for half of the cream cheese filling.
Use 6 ounces (170g) cream cheese and 6 ounces (3/4 cup) whole-milk or part-skim
ricotta cheese
https://www.thevanillabeanblog.com/kolaches/
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/czech-kolaches-recipe
https://www.cooklikeczechs.com/moravian-kolache-moravske-kolace/
https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mjw/recipes/misc/kolaches.html
Farmer cheese filling:
450 grams farmers cheese (225 grams)
120 grams powdered sugar (60 grams)
1 egg yolk
1 T cornstarch (1 ½ t. cornstarch)
Optional:
1 T. lemon zest (1 ½ t. lemon zest)
1 t. vanilla (1/2 t. vanilla)
2 T. raisins (1 T. raisins)
Place all ingredients into a
bowl; mix well.
Visit the other Babes to see what they made:
