Koláče Czech filled pastries are round, yeast-risen pastries filled with poppyseed, plum jam, sweetened tvaroh (farmer’s cheese) or other sweet fillings. In English we know them as kolache. The dough is rich and brioche-like as opposed to the light and flaky dough of a Danish pastry. Do not confuse kolache with Polish kołaczki (kolachky) which are rich, filled cookies. Although the names are related and they share some similarities, these items are not the same thing.

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Before you begin the kolache making process, decide what you want to fill them with. If using a homemade filling, such as a fruit jam, you’ll need to prepare that in advance since making some of the traditional fillings from scratch can be a time-consuming process. For this demonstration I used store-bought farmer’s cheese and poppyseed filling and two homemade fruit fillings, plum jam and peach jam. You could easily use store bought fillings (canned poppyseed or pie fillings) but use all-fruit jams and not jellies or they will be a runny mess.

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Koláče Czech filled pastries and their cousins

First, the language lesson. The word koláče is a plural form (from singular koláč, which is used for larger, cake-like baked goods) with a root that means ‘wheel’ across many Slavic languages. These pastries (and cakes) are often round, like a wheel. Incidentally, the Polish kołaczki are also technically ‘little wheels’ though they most often start as squares and do not appear round. Like the Czech, a Polish kołacz (and Serbian kóláč) is a round cake or bread. We will make kolachky together in a future post.

Koláče (henceforth kolache–I won’t be using the Anglicized plural “kolaches”) are very popular in parts of the U.S. such as Texas and the upper Midwest with large populations of Czech descendants. (My grandmother was from Phillips, Wisconsin, where they’ve hosted a Czech-Slovak festival for almost 40 years).

The “authentic” version of kolache presented here is less sweet than the Americanized version popular in the States (surprise!). You can always add more sugar to your dough and really douse them with confectioner’s sugar before serving if you want to sweeten them up. (I gave the batch shown in this post to some Texans who raved over them, commenting only that they were not quite as sweet as they liked but otherwise some of the best kolache they’ve ever had).

Flour, flour, flour koláče Czech filled pastries

Whenever we are baking a traditional Czech recipe, we are going to have to decide which flour to use. I’ll have to write an entire blog post about flour sometime (after 13 years in the flour business I have plenty of thoughts on this topic!). Here’s the gist: Czech flours are produced and sold by the coarseness of the grind; flours in the US are produced and sold according to several factors–the degree to which they are “whole” or refined and, roughly speaking, their protein content (though to complicate the situation the package will suggest what you will use the flour for and not directly state the protein content). For an in-depth look at the differences of these flours, with some test baking results, check out this blog post on Slovak cooking.

In the knedlícky post, I had good luck combining all-purpose flour with semolina flour to get the consistency of Czech flour. The results were good. For these kolache I used a blend of three flours, all-purpose, bread flour, and quick-blending (gravy) flour. The gravy flour has the gritty coarseness that is reminiscent of Czech polohruba (semi-course) flour but it’s low in protein (gluten), which isn’t good for yeast baking. That’s why I added a little bread flour (high protein) to the mix for this recipe. Knedlíky are tender dumplings that do not need much structure so I skipped the added protein in that recipe. So by combining these three flours I got something that had the texture/coarseness and the proper baking properties needed to make good kolache. Despite going through all that for the purposes of authenticity, I assure you that using 100% all-purpose would work just fine!

Getting started

We start kolache just like any other yeast baking recipe. First warm the milk slightly and put a little sugar and the yeast in it to activate. Meanwhile combine the other dough ingredients.

Stir together whatever flour combination you have settled on, add the rest of the sugar, salt, and lemon zest. Zest the peel of one lemon for this recipe.

Then work in the softened butter. This recipe has a separated egg, so put two whole eggs in a small bowl and then add the yolk from a third egg. Save the egg white for glazing the kolache before baking. When the yeast mixture is bubbly, beat the eggs into it well.

Pour the liquid into the dry ingredients and stir to combine. Then bring everything together into a cohesive dough using a bowl scraper.

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This dough is fairly sticky, so you might want to cover the bowl and let the dough rest a few minutes before turning out and kneading it. This will help it fully hydrate so the liquid penetrates the dough fully, making it easier to work with. Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, sprinkle with a little flour and knead until smooth. Place the dough back into the bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let the dough rise until doubled in size.

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Many traditional recipes have you deflate and raise the dough at least three times. Now’s a good time to do some chores around the house. While you wait, put together the streusel topping.

Shaping the kolache

After your dough has risen at least three times (and a maximum of five times), turn it out onto a lightly floured surface to begin shaping. Gently flatten it and divide into two equal pieces; divide these into two pieces for a total of four quarters of your dough.

Still with me? This is a long recipe! Now divide those four dough pieces into 5 even pieces and roll them into balls. These will be your kolache. Place the dough balls on parchment lined baking sheets, with a couple inches of space around them.

Flatten each dough ball with a glass dipped in flour, pressing very hard until you can’t press any farther. (Be careful not to squeeze the glass lest you break it!) Or press down in the centers with your fingers until you have made flat, even wells for filling.

Take the reserved egg white, beat it with a tablespoon of water, and brush all around the edges of your kolache. Now they are ready to be filled. Turn your oven to 350°F.

Filling the kolache

With the fillings of your choice at hand, spoon them into the wells you have created. Feel free to mix fillings: cheese and jam; poppyseed and cheese; jam and poppyseed…Or fill them with only one topping. The choice is yours. Sprinkle about 3/4 teaspoon of streusel over each one.

Bake the kolache for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and let cool completely before putting into a container for storage. You can freeze completely cooled kolache in a zip top bag and keep for a few weeks. Defrost them naturally and you won’t notice much of a difference between thawed and fresh. When ready to serve, sprinkle with some confectioner’s sugar for added sweetness and a nice presentation. As I mentioned at the outset, these kolache are not as sweet as some Americans are accustomed to so adding extra powdered sugar is a way to sweeten them to your taste. Let me know what you think in the comments!