Kolaches
By: Carrie Barr
Published: Saturday, December 26, 2009 - 2:49am

Ingredients




1 tablespoon sugar
2 packas yeast
1/2 cup warm water
2 cups milk
1/2 cup shortening
2 teaspoons salt
2 egg yolks, slightly-beaten
1/2 cup sugar
6 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 sticks butter, melted
1 can jam, fruit or poppy-seed filling
1 recipe Popsika: see step 6

Preparation

1 Sprinkle 1 tablespoon sugar over the yeast and dissolve in lukewarm water. Set aside.
 2 Heat the milk in a small saucepan and dissolve the shortening in it. Cool to lukewarm; then add salt, egg yolks, and sugar.
 3 Combine milk/egg mixture and yeast mixture. Add flour gradually and
work dough by hand or with a mixer until glossy.  Keep it a little sticky, if possible.
 4 Cover, place in a warm, draft-free place, and let rise until double
in size, 45 minutes to one hour. 5 After the dough has risen, punch it down and knead lightly. Divide into egg-sized portions with a spoon and form balls. Place on well-oiled baking pans about an inch apart and butter well.
 6 Let rise  about 15 minutes, then make indentations in the dough balls for the filling. Fill each indention with a large teaspoon filling. Make the Popsika with by combining 1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 cup flour, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and 2 tablespoons of melted butter until the mixture resembles crumbs. Sprinkle the Popsika over the filling.

  7 Place pans of kolache in a warm, draft free place, and allow to
double in size again, about 45 minutes to one hour. 8 Place in an oven preheated to 375 degrees. Bake until golden brown, then remove the kolaches from the oven. Cool slightly, remove from pans, and cool on wire racks.

About


My family is Czech and has a kolache recipe that has been passed down for generations. This is not it, but it's still good; one difference is that we don't butter the dough in step 5.  My great grandmother would mix flour, sugar and a touch of cream into store-bought jam or poppy seed filling and would use butter instead of shortening.

Comments:
Lady Catherine ...

Wow this looks fantastic!