Making Kolaches

Our preacher is married to a wonderful woman who also happens to be from the Czech Republic. She makes great, authentic Czech kolaches with cream cheese and fruit filling. She brings them to group gatherings from time to time. I remember the first time I finally got to try one of "Ivana's famous kolaches." Yeah, they're that delicious. One day, I jokingly told the preacher that he shouldn't be allowed at our 4th of July cookout/game night unless he showed up with kolaches (now at the time his wife was visiting her family in the Czech republic, so she was not available to make them). He informed me that he would not be making them, but that if I wanted them so badly that I should ask his wife to hold a kolache baking class so I could learn to make them. So, I did. Now, I was the only student.....but that just means I got some good one-on-one instruction. Here's a little bit about my experience.....(if you want the recipe, check out my "What's cookin?" page)

We arrived at 5:00 and she had everything out on the counter ready to go (I totally forgot to take pics from the very beginning....#bloggerfail). She handed me a pen and paper so I could write out the recipe and take notes. She told me it would do me no good to copy her recipe since it was all in Czech. I wrote down the ingredients needed for the dough. She then showed me the process for making the dough. She used her bread maker, but she said it could be made using my Kitchenaid Mixer. She gave me all the tips when dealing with yeast and rising dough. For example, yeast reacts to warm liquids, but you don't want the yeast to come into direct contact with the liquid. I love getting "tricks of the trade." I have a bread maker, but it's old and I'm pretty sure I have no idea how to use it. It takes about an hour to an hour and half for the dough to rise. While we waited, we sat in the living room for a little chat over grapes and cheese cubes! Me, being the nosy curious person I am, was asking all kinds of questions pertaining to being from another country. I'm fascinated by other cultures. She was very nice and answered/explained everything I wanted to know.

When the dough was ready, it was time to roll it out into a long log

After you roll it into this log shape, you cut it into pieces. Each batch makes about 20 pieces. Then, roll each piece into a ball and flatten it out.

After we flatten out each ball of dough, we stuffed it with our cream cheese mixture (this is optional; you don't have to have a double filling....but I love cream cheese so.......) When you put in your cream cheese mixture, you form the dough into a "pocket" and then flatten it out before placing it on the pan. You want to make sure your cream cheese is fully sealed in the dough so it doesn't ooze out when baking. 

Once you get them on the pan, use your finger to make a "dimple" in the middle of the dough then brush each kolache with the left over egg whites from your eggs (mentioned in the recipe). This helps get the kolaches a nice shade of brown. Then, you top it with your choice of fruit, preserve, or "butter". This part is really up to you. We made 3 flavors: apple butter, plum butter, fresh apricots.

The plum butter we used is made from Serbian plums. They bought this particular jar at a store here in town called "Apollo the Greek." I personally have not checked this store out yet. However, I plan on checking it out to purchase this product since it was my favorite.

Here we are putting it into the over to bake. It only takes about 10 minutes to bake. 

And here they are fresh from the over. The dusting on top is an equal mixture of powdered sugar and flour with a bit of melted butter. This is also optional.

I've never had these fresh from the oven....WOW! They are amazing! Since today was "National Junk Food Day," I think it was totally appropriate that these were our dinner, with a cup of coffee. Of course, I didn't find out about junk food day until AFTER I had these for dinner, but......

We had a nice visit. We ended up staying for about 4 1/2 hours eating and talking. I may or may not have had one of each flavor....we won't even get into the amount that Mr. B consumed........

Some other things I learned:

• A kolache under no circumstance should ever have meat of any kind in it. If it does, I'm not to mention it to them. An authentic Czech kolache does NOT have meat in it. "No self-respecting Czech ever puts meat in a kolache."
• When counting in Czech, be careful when saying the number 4.....it can come out as a naughty word in English (yeah, it happened)
• When counting in Czech, the number 16 sounds an awful lot like the word "chestnuts."
• Finally, I really shouldn't count in Czech.....it doesn't work for me!