The recipe below is a scanned copy of what Kanga had at home. I confess that I broke the rules and modified the recipe the first time I made it. I substituted honey for some of the sugar (about half). I think honey helps keep bread products from going stale as quickly, and I remembered kolache going stale pretty quickly. I kept mine in tupperware, and while they definitely were best the first day, they did keep pretty well for a few days. I would use the honey again next time. I also didn't use the Jiska, just because I didn't want the extra sugar and didn't feel like taking the time. I didn't miss it.
The dough is extremely wet and soft. I did add more flour than called for in the end, but I tried to not handle the dough much and to let it stay pretty wet. I did not ever get a round loaf that I could let rise outside a bowl. In the end, the kolache were very light and tender, so I think I would do the same again.
For fillings:
1) I made an apricot-peach filling by chopping some dried apricots then cooking them with a chopped peach and some grand marnier (I would have used OJ, but didn't have any on hand.) The natural pectin of the apricots thickened it enough.
2) I did a prune filling by mixing chopped prunes with a little sugar, cinnamon, and some lemon juice. This tasted just like I remember.
3) I made a cream cheese filling by mixing cream cheese, some sugar, an egg yolk, and a little flour together.
I made a half recipe, and cut out 24 kolache from my first roll of the dough. At that point, I ran out of space on my pans, so I didn't re-roll the dough. I estimate that I could have gotten anough 8-12 from what remained, but figured we didn't need them (and I didn't have space anyway).
I've been thinking about Grandpa and thus also Kanga a lot the past couple weeks, and it was really nice to taste these and have that connection to memories from growing up.
-Maggie
Mother’s Kolache
(Kolach is singular, Kolache is plural. Ed.)
Take a dish that will hold at least 1 gallon
Warm 1 quart milk comfortably, put into dish with 1
compressed yeast cake (crumbled) or 1 package dry yeast.
Sprinkle 2 Tbsp. sugar on top, let sit until yeast comes to
the top.
Add 3 cups warm flour and stir with a spoon until it is
smooth.
Put in a warm place until it rises to the top of the dish.
Stir down and let rise again, then add 1 cup oil, ½ cup
sugar, 2 Tbsp salt, 2 eggs and about 4 more cups warm flour; enough to make the
dough easy to hbdle but not stiff.
Work on a bread board until it stands in a nice round loaf.
DO NOT ADD TOO MUCH FLOUR
Cover and put in a warm place to rise double.
Now grease your pans, pit your prunes, add to them a little
sugar, cinnamon, and lemon juice (the prunes, I assume, not the pans. Ed.)
When the dough has risen, flatten it and cut into rounds.
Place 1 inch apart on cookie sheets.
Let rise until when you poke it, it leaves a dent.
Grease the dough rounds and make center dents.
Fill with prunes and sprinkle with jiska.
Bake at 450F until desired color, 8-10 minutes.
Jiska
2 spoons flour
2 spoons sugar
a little grease
mix until crumbly
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