kolaches

One of my friends has started a bit of a tradition. She plans a big party for a specific occasion or theme. I ask what I can bring. She gives me a baking project. I make something new-to-me and find out what 20 random taste-testers (ahem, partygoers!) think of that item. In the end, we both win! Oh, and the parties are usually fun too.

Last year for her Texas Independence Day party Leigh had me make sausage and cheese bites. This year she suggested kolaches. Which I had never heard of before.  Turns out, they’re very popular at Texas potlucks (for good reason). They’re like little homemade Hot Pockets^®, except 20 times more delicious.

Kolaches (adapted from a Homemade Mamas recipe)

INGREDIENTS

Dough
1 packet of active dry yeast

1/4 cup warm water

1/2 cup sugar, plus 1/4 teaspoon for proofing the yeast
3/4 cup warm milk

4 cups of all-purpose flour
3 eggs (2 for dough, 1 for egg wash)
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 teaspoon of salt

Filling

14 oz. to 1 lb. of skinless Polish sausage, fully cooked

8 oz. shredded cheese (I used a Mexican cheese blend)

Pepperoncini or jalapeño peppers, to taste

DIRECTIONS

Proof the yeast by adding the contents of the yeast packet to a very warm 1/4 cup of water and 1/4 teaspoon of sugar (I always do this in my liquid measuring cup).  Yeast should start rising/bubbling within five minutes. Once you’re sure you’ve got an active batch, combine yeast, warm milk, the rest of the sugar and one cup of flour in a large bowl. Cover and let it rise for at least 30 minutes (or until doubled in size).

In a small bowl beat the 2 eggs, then add the 1/2 cup of melted butter and salt and blend well. Add the egg mixture to the yeast mixture and mix until thoroughly incorporated. Stir in the flour, 1/2 cup at a time. Amount of flour for the right dough consistency may vary, and you may need to knead it in with your hands. You want to end up with soft, slightly sticky dough.

Knead dough for about 10 minutes either on a well-floured surface or in the bowl (adding more flour as necessary). Place dough in a well-greased bowl – I used a liberal coating of olive oil to do the trick. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rise until doubled in size. The original recipe said that would take about an hour, but I let it rise for three hours while I watched a playoff hockey game and it was fine.

While dough is rising, prepare the filling. Slice the sausage lengthwise, then chop into smaller pieces. Mix together the sausage, cheese and diced peppers in a medium bowl and set aside.

After dough has risen, punch it down. Now you’re ready for kolache construction! Pull off egg-sized pieces, and using your hands, flatten them out into disks, about four inches in diameter. Place 1 1/2 to 2 tablespoons of filling in the middle of the disk, and close the dough around the filling. Pinch dough shut and place seam side down on a baking sheet. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 20 minutes. In the meantime, preheat oven 375 degrees F.

Beat the third egg in a small bowl. Before you place the kolaches in the oven, brush tops with egg wash. Bake for 13 to 18 minutes. Tops should be lightly golden brown when done. Let cool for five minutes on the baking sheets, then transfer to cooling rack. Wait 10 minutes, then enjoy! Makes 24 kolaches.

Real talk time: This recipe is flipping delicious. It was a huge hit at the party. It was also somewhat stressful to make (for me, because I don’t usually bother with bread dough). I had to schedule in time for dough to rise, and my first two packets of yeast were duds. So I was running behind, I had other plans during the day, and I ended up leaving the dough to rise on my counter for three hours. Oops! Luckily, it all worked out. Another confession: I used Papa John’s pepperoncini peppers left over from the delivery boxes the night before, because I’m lazy. But hey, that bite of spice was perfect.

In all, this is a major crowd-pleaser of a recipe. And the ingredients are easy to source. It may become one I pull out for special occasions when I’m away from my own kitchen (Christmas, Thanksgiving & the 4^th of July, hmmm?), because while it’s not exactly simple, it’s uncomplicated and delicious. And technically, it’s finger food.

Recommended for: parties, and any other occasion when you want to wow the crowd with savory finger food.

Interested in other food-related posts? Check out Beth Fish Reads’ Weekend Cooking!

inspired baking gone wrong

My latest culinary experiment was inspired by an innocuous sentence on page 15 of my copy of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust: “Then he walked into the farm kitchen, and kissed his mother on the cheek, and helped himself to a cottage loaf and a large pat of fresh-churned butter.” No, I didn’t churn butter. I live in the midst of a city (Atlanta) and have no access to a cow, even if I did want to churn butter. Which I don’t. I tried it once (churning) at a pioneer reenactment farm, and it was both hard work and unsatisfying. But I digress. What inspired me in that very ordinary phrase above was the ‘cottage loaf’ part. I drink tea when literary characters drink tea…I suppose I really shouldn’t have been surprised that it seems to work along the same lines for food. Because all of a sudden, at 1:30am, I thought, “I would LOVE some fresh-baked bread. I wonder how long that takes to make?” And promptly got online and looked up this recipe. So I set all the ingredients out, mixed and kneaded as directed, and left the dough to rise for a bit while I surfed online.

My dough didn’t rise. It didn’t even TRY. Well, I don’t know that really, but the YEAST in the dough certainly didn’t try. I had two loaves worth of dud French bread dough. I’ve had faulty yeast before, so it’s not like this was a completely new situation, but when you invest 5+ cups of flour in a recipe, it’s nice if it turns out. I didn’t want to throw out all of that work, so I got online again and Google searched “What do I do if the dough doesn’t rise?” Not kidding. And the pages that answered the question had all sorts of helpful suggestions along the lines of ‘add more yeast’ (which I didn’t have handy and it was the middle of the night for heavens’ sake!) and ‘make focaccia!’ (which requires herbs, ditto on earlier problem of the not having them on hand and middle of the night scenario). BUT! Someone had also posted photos of using the dough for pizza. With suggestions for oven heat and time. I was saved!

Then I looked in my fridge.

It didn’t seem at all promising after that. I pottered around a bit, thinking, looking in the fridge again (for inspiration?), and checked my pantry. Well, I had spaghetti sauce in a jar, so that would work. And I had some grated Monterey Jack cheese, which while not mozzarella, would substitute in a pinch. So it was just down to toppings. No olives. No cooked meats. No peppers randomly sitting around. Really, my fridge runs to yogurt, applesauce, ginger ale, cheese, and lemons these days. None of which exactly scream, “Put me on a pizza, you fool!” But wait, what is this? Eureka (if you don’t know what that means, get snapping on your gold rush history)! I discovered half of a red onion and one of those little garlic condiment things they put in delivery pizza boxes. Pure gold, that stuff. So I spread some dud dough out flat (maybe ¼ inch thick), mixed the spaghetti sauce with garlic stuff and applied it over dough, and then added chopped red onion and cheese. Put in 400˚F oven for 15-20 minutes, and voilà! Pizza. Not what I intended when I embarked on this baking adventure, but tasty nonetheless. And I estimate that the bread/pizza dough will make at least three, if not four, personal sized pizzas. Now I just have to think of other imaginative/unusual topping ideas!

Lesson learned: don't start reading a Neil Gaiman book in the middle of the night. Or any book that mentions food at all. Ha!