A co-worker of mine has a thing for kolalches. He also has a thing for telling long, involved stories. That's why I know about his neighbor who made the best kolaches ever, until she died, without passing on the recipe (though I suspect that she did pass on the recipe and that the heirs just refuse to pander to my friend's voracious appetite). The bakery in the neighboring town, moreover, charges an arm and a leg for their kolache and they taste like hog slop.Shortly after I started working in the newsroom, my mom happened to make kolache while I was home for a visit. So, having inherited my mom's passion for feeding people, whoever and wherever and however full they may already be, I took back a plate of four or five for him.
For the last two years, then, I've heard about how Susanne's mom's kolaches rate in the top three best kolaches ever, after the dead neighbor and leaving room for a possible hiccup in memory. I've also been asked, repeatedly, when I'm going to have my mom make me some kolaches again.
Here's the thing. At first it was cute, but then I realized he was serious. And then I noticed this: My friend is a total food mooch. He once plucked an expired carton of milk out of someone's garbage and drank it. Granted it was only expired by one day, but it was in the garbage. If there is food anywhere in the office, he is on it, in his own words, like a monkey on a cupcake. He had the audacity once to get angry when someone brought in treats of some sort for the office and they were all gone before he had any. And the only food I remember him ever bringing into the office has been his mom's cookies.
While I understand that he might never have had occasion to develop cooking skills, I have little patience for learned helplessness. How hard is it, after all, to add water to a muffin mix? Or to break apart refrigerated cookie dough?
It's not hard, friends.
So the next time the topic of Susanne's mom's kolaches came up, I told my friend that should the occasion ever arise that I had a hankering for some fresh kolache, I would bake them myself. And then I offered to get him the recipe.
And then, the more I thought about it, the more worked up I got: For 30 some odd years people have catered to this man and, in the process, really done him a disservice. What if, for example, he ended up married to someone who'd rather not bake her own birthday cake. What then? Would he ask his mom to do it?
The answer, I realize now, is yes. And that's fine. Truly. But at the time, I decided to show him some tough love and in the process I made a bargain. I told him that if he brought in a pan of bars -- though rice krispie bars did not count -- I would bake him a batch of kolaches.
He wanted nothing to do with it. That should have been the end of it.
But I'm stubborn, another inherited trait, and we'd reached an impasse of sorts -- and I was starting to actually get mad (all the refrigerated cookie dough thing requires is a pan, some Pam and an oven, God bless him), though I have absolutely no real investment in his future inside the kitchen.
I had to let it go because I really do like him -- so I made the kolaches. And if he threw them down his maw with nary a word of thanks, what does it matter? I'm just glad that I don't have to make my own birthday cake. And, admittedly, I have enough ego to get the affirmation I need from just seeing someone enjoy my baking.
I'm not qualified to say if they were the best kolaches ever, but they were good -- and I made them myself.
***
(My Dad's Aunt) Kathryn's Kolaches
My very favorite part about this recipe is its succinctness.
2 cups warm milk
1/2 cup warm water
3/4 cup instant potato buds
1/2 cup oil
4 egg yolks or 2 whole eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 packages (2 1/4 teaspoons, each) yeast
5-6 cups flour
1. Mix as usual.
I'm not exactly sure what she means by "as usual," but this is what I did and it worked fine: Proof the yeast -- mix it with the warm water and a tablespoon of the sugar in a drinking glass or large measuring cup and set aside until it's frothy. Heat the milk, potato buds, oil salt, and eggs with the rest of the sugar in a saucepan. Once it's cool enough -- should feel comfortable on the inside of your wrist -- that it won't kill the yeast, mix in the yeast mixture with 3 cups of flour until smooth.
Keep adding flour until you have a soft, but not sticky dough. At some point you'll have to turn it out onto a floured surface to knead. It was fairly humid, so I ended up using 6 cups of flour, if not a little more.
2. Let rise.About an hour or so, until double. You'll know it's risen enough when you can press your fingers into the dough and the indentations remain. (The dough doesn't look like it's risen very much in the picture below, but that's because it's in the biggest Tupperware bowl -- a 32-cupper -- I've ever seen, a gift from my mom.)
3. Make into balls -- put on pan. Let rise again.
This recipe will make between 3 and 4 dozen, depending on how big you make the kolache. Make sure to grease the pan. And then let them raise until double, about a half hour.
4. Make a well with your fingers and fill with 1 rounding teaspoon any flavor fruit filling.
The dough is very light and easy work with. I make the well by poking one finger in dead center and then using two fingers on both hands to stretch the dough.
I used canned cherry pie filling and a fresh peach filling.
5. Let rise again.
About 15 minutes.
6. Another recipe calls for a crumbly mixture to sprinkle on top before baking. Optional.
I opted for the crumbly mixture:
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons butter
(Mix and crumble, per Kathryn's directions.)
6. Bake 375 degrees.For about 15 minutes or until they look like this:
And then you can drizzle a powdered sugar glaze over them while they're still warm.
They are perfect fresh from the oven -- tender and soft and sweet without being too sweet. Best with a big glass of cold milk and possibly a slice of sharp cheddar cheese.Incidentally, I don't know if kolache plural is kolaches, or just kolache. So forgive my ignorance and fill me in if you know.
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