When making the three hour drive from Austin to Houston, it’s customary to take a rest-stop in the town of La Grange, specifically Weikel’s, a gas station and bakery known for their kolache. Back when my grandparents had a second home in La Grange, we’d pick up a batch for them and share them at breakfast the next morning, but these days we just pass on through. Todd doesn’t like sweet rolls very much.
But enough reminiscing; this week I’ve been kicking myself for NOT buying a pack of kolaches, so this morning, I decided to remedy the situation by making my own. I’d never made them before, so to get started I looked for a recipe on Texas Monthly’s web site. I chose the kolache recipe from Dorothy Bohac, PhD., President of the Travis Williamson Counties Czech Hertiage Society because with credentials like that, she had to know what she was doing!
Not being very brave, I only made 1/3 of the full recipe (8 kolaches). The nice thing was I was able to do the whole thing with a mixing spoon and a bowl. If you are more daring, you might want to go with the full recipe.
The recipe is located on the Texas Montly page (link again). If you have any problems accessing it, let me know.
Here are some pictures from my kolache adventure.
It’s alive! Proof I didn’t kill the yeast.
A raw kolache with some filling. Notice my dough is a little *too* stiff. I should have added a tad more milk. Remember, I cut the recipe down to 1/3 so there was room for error. Next time, I’ll be more careful. I might even try the recipe with bread flour.
The fillings and the crumb topping came together very easily. I used Dorothy’s recipe for the crumb topping (posypka!) and found some others for the filling –Jerabek’s for the apricot and Morkovsky’s for the cream cheese . Filllings were perfect and very easy to scale down.
And that’s all. No more pictures. I am really excited about making these again, perhaps with bread flour and definitely with a lighter hand on the flour scooper. Even though mine were a little on the heavy side, they tasted great. As a bonus, my house smells like Weikel’s.
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I love Kolaches!! When I was in college in Waco I belonged to the computer club (showing my geekyness here) and we sold these in the mornings for a fund raiser. We sold out so fast! We got them in West, TX which has a lot of Czech people. Sausage ones are really good too! Wow…that brings back so many memories.
Brenda, I just got off the phone with my dad. I told him I was making kolaches and he started going on and on about West and how great their kolaches were. I might have to try the sausage variety.
My grandmother used to make the best kolaches. I am from El Campo which is full of kolache-making Czechs. You are brave though. My mom made them one time and they turned out horrible so I have never tried myself. I just get my kolache fix at Mornings Kolaches in Houston.
My grandmother made prune ones. I’m glad they didn’t tell me that when I was young because I may not have eaten them but the posypka made the prunes taste so good!!
I am going to have to save this recipe… Our Czech Au Pair makes them with poppy seeds and prunes,too. Thanks for posting this!
The link you provided for this website no longer has the recipe for this, nor does it have the other 2 recipes from that website. When you click on them it says the page is lost….. Do you happen to still have a copy of the recipe you used? I’d love to try these!
John, thanks for letting me know! I’ll do some searching and see if I can find the Texas Monthly recipe. When I do, I will add a link and email you the recipe.
Thank you!