Bohemian Baking

Since I had successfully recreated my family's chicken and dumpling recipe, I decided I would continue on with some family traditions and make kolaches for Jason to take to work for a birthday treat this week. 

Kolaches are another great treat I remember grandma making when I was little, and one that stays true to our Bohemian roots.  I also remember my mom always buying kolaches when she found them at the grocery store to bring up to my grandpa when we would visit.  The flavor of choice for my mom and grandpa is always poppy seed so I picked up some poppy seed filling at the grocery store this week.  After opening the jar and giving it a taste I instantly remember why I always ate the fruit flavored ones when I was a kid, poppy seed filling is gross.  So I decided to change it up a bit and make three different flavors: cherry cheesecake, strawberry cheesecake, and blackberry/raspberry.

1 package dry active yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1 cup warm milk
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup mashed potatoes, without added butter or milk (I cheat here and use the potato buds made with just water)
3 egg yolks
1 tsp salt
4 - 4 1/2 cups flour

In a stand mixer, dissolve the yeast in the water.  Add the milk, butter, sugar, potatoes, egg yolks, and salt and mix until combined.  Add enough flour to make a very soft dough.  Place in a greased bowl and loosely cover and let sit in a warm place until doubled in size, about an hour.

I doubled the recipe so I then split my dough into 4 but for one batch, just split it in half.  Roll each piece of dough into a log shape and cut into about 1" rounds.

Flatten out each piece into about a 3" circle that is higher around the edges than in the middle.

Place these rounds onto greased baking sheets and allow to rise again for about 40 minutes.  It would help to cover the baking sheets with parchment paper but I was out so I didn't.  This will help if the filling runs out of the dough so the bottoms of the kolaches don't get burned by all the sugars.

While the dough was rising again, I got to work on my fillings.  The beauty of kolaches is that once you have the dough made you can fill them with anything you like.  I had some home made cherry pie filling in the freezer so I brought that out and heated it up.

Then I chopped up some strawberries and cooked them up with some sugar and gelatin to thicken it up a bit.

Last but not least I mixed up some blackberry pie filling with some raspberries to create my third filling.

Once the dough had risen, I filled each round with a heaping spoonful of filling and popped them into a 375 oven for about 15 minutes, just until they are a light golden brown.  Remove and place on wire racks to cool.

Once they had cooled completely I decided to top the strawberry and cheery ones with some of the leftover cheesecake filling I had in the fridge.  Here's the finished product.

cherry cheesecake

strawberry cheesecake

and blackberry/raspberry

They taste just like the ones that grandma used to make!