# Help With Tough Kolache Dough



## bwitt (Jul 31, 2014)

Hello all,I am experimenting with kolache dough and used bread flour and a whole egg. The original recipe calls for just a yolk. The finished product is tough and a little dry. I was thinking i could keep the whole egg and switch to all purpose flour. 
Any suggestions in getting to a light, fluffy dough?


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## flipflopgirl (Jun 27, 2012)

Agree with your instinct to switch flours but advise you to ditch the egg white (pure dry protein and will only cause you grief).
Kolaches should have the texture of a fluffy, yeast risen dinner roll.
I use a recipe given to me by a little old Czech lady (hubs#2 gma).
She spent her Mondays doing laundry and baking her breads. for the week.
Plain jane AP flour, fresh egg yolks, yeast, salt , butter and a bit of whole milk.
Fresh homemade fillings including grinding her poppy seeds by hand.
Not a traditional filling but she would make a few cream cheese and lemon ones for me.
The soft ricotta type cheese filling makes me gag.
Sure miss Mondays when I would come home to a box of fresh pastry and a loaf of bread sitting on the back porch.

mimi


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## chefross (May 5, 2010)

Do you mean Kolachke?

The Polish kind we always ate was a sour cream, egg, flour (all purpose), and baking soda type cookie with fruit fillings like prune, apricot and bakers cheese,


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## flipflopgirl (Jun 27, 2012)

Hey Ross ...jak se mas ?


Chefross said:


> Do you mean Kolachke?
> 
> The Polish kind we always ate was a sour cream, egg, flour (all purpose), and baking soda type cookie with fruit fillings like prune, apricot and bakers cheese,


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolache

Mine are a thickish square of dough, fluffy and tender.

Slightly sweet, with not too sweet and very thick fruit or other filling added into a depression in the middle.

I have seen recipes that listed sour cream in the ingredient list , but never any end product that I would call a cookie.

Prune is the other filling I don't favor so instead fill with a thick almost pasty raisin and toasted pecan filling.

Some varieties have a strusel topping some not.

The poppy seed and meat (sausage or ham, some with cheese some without and even barbecued pork rib meat eek) are completely enclosed.

mimi


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## nicko (Oct 5, 2001)

@Mezzaluna @James Berman any experience with Kolachke dough?


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## chicagoterry (Apr 3, 2012)

Or is this the Hungarian version of Kolache we're talking about? Which is an eggy, buttery, slightly sweet yeast dough rolled around a poppyseed or walnut filling.

Most Hungarians call it Beigli but in whatever part of Hungary my mother's family was from, they called it Kolache.


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## bwitt (Jul 31, 2014)

I will have to research the Hungarian version. The product that i want is similar to what was described as Hungarian.

Thank you


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## mezzaluna (Aug 29, 2000)

Wouldn't bread flour have too much protein for such a tender dough? I always think of bread flour as having too much gluten for tender baked goods like cake and pastry. But I'm not well-schooled in such things.

I've not made kolaches before, but the ones I've encountered didn't have a yeast-type dough; it was more of a pastry-type dough similar to what you'd use for rugelach. I use all-purpose flour for my rugelach (see my avatar for these little treats; they're also in my photo gallery). The dough has no egg in it at all. It's just flour, sour cream and margarine (_not _butter). The filling (jam, chocolate, dried fruit, etc.) provides all the sweetness you'd need. It's an unusual dough of its kind since usually such dough uses cream cheese and butter. But this version is tender and flaky. I pulse the flour and margarine in the food processor but mix in the sour cream by hand or the dough gets gluey. It's easy to work with and freezes well.

Here's the recipe if you're interested: [thread="41396"]Rugelach [/thread] It's in Post #15.

After doing a little research, I realized what you may mean is a bit more like this:




  








kolache.jpg




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mezzaluna


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Aug 7, 2014


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## mtullius (Feb 20, 2014)

I got this recipe from a Czech church cookbook. It's the slightly sweet, yeast dough type. Kind of like a danish. I've heard of some people who use a cream cheese dough that is leavened with baking powder but this is the kind my friend's Bohemian grandma made. It's been awhile since I've made these, but I think I made them on 2 half sheets. Sometimes these are topped with a flour, butter, sugar mix called popsika. I don't like it so I just sift powdered sugar on top after they cool.

3 packs dry active yeast

1/2 Cup warm water

1 teaspoon sugar

2 & 3/4 Cups milk

2 sticks butter (use cold butter so it will cool your scalded milk faster)

3/4 Cups sugar

3 egg yolks

3 teaspoons salt

7 Cups AP flour

In liquid measuring cup, dissolve yeast in warm water. Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon sugar and let stand.

Scald milk in a sauce pan. Remove from heat and stir in butter and 3/4 cup sugar.

Cool to lukewarm. Add salt and egg yolks.

Combine milk mixture and yeast in a large bowl. Using a heavy mixer, add flour until all has been used.

Knead dough on a lightly floured board until glossy.

Place in a bowl, cover and let rise until doubled.

Shape egg sized pieces of dough into balls. Place 1 inch apart on greased sheet pans. Brush top of each ball with butter.

Let rise again until about double, they should be touching each other.

Make a deep indentation with your fingers into the dough ball and fill with 1 teaspoon of filling. This indentation must be deep -without penetrating the bottom - or you will have kolaches with topping instead of filling

Let rise 20 minutes.

Bake at 425 F for about 15 minutes.

Brush with melted butter immediately after removing to keep them soft.


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## chicagoterry (Apr 3, 2012)

I truly wish I could help you with the recipe but I haven't got the one my mother, her mother and her mother's mother used when I was growing up. Something mysterious happened to my mom's scribbled cookbook when she died suddenly in 2004 and my other sister who cooks and I have both been  bereft about it ever since. I do know it would not have been made with bread flour, though. It was a pretty rich and tender dough. I've never been able to find a recipe for anything close to what I grew up with googling "kolache" but googling beigli does bring a lot of results.


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## flipflopgirl (Jun 27, 2012)

ChicagoTerry said:


> I truly wish I could help you with the recipe but I haven't got the one my mother, her mother and her mother's mother used when I was growing up. Something mysterious happened to my mom's scribbled cookbook when she died suddenly in 2004 and my other sister who cooks and I have both been bereft about it ever since. I do know it would not have been made with bread flour, though. It was a pretty rich and tender dough. I've never been able to find a recipe for anything close to what I grew up with googling "kolache" but googling beigli does bring a lot of results.


There is some kind of little old Czech lady conspiracy going on around here.
None of the local cookbooks have the real deal when it comes down to an authentic Kolache recipe.
When Gma K handed me a copy written in her crab like scrawl I had to promise to not share it.
She's been gone for awhile now but I have kept my promise.
Sorry about your mom's recipe collection.
That has to hurt.

mimi


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## chicagoterry (Apr 3, 2012)

Thanks Mimi.

She actually wasn't much of a cook but she did do a lot of baking around the holidays. Many things were pretty standard recipes that aren't that hard to find substitutes for but the kolache dough and filling recipes I do mourn.  And the palascinta recipe--the Hungarian version of crepes.


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