Cherry Kolaches Part 2, The Squeakquel

I love wikipedia because it's always so...right. Right about everything! Last week when I stumbled upon that Cherry Kolache recipe, wikipedia told me that it was a pastry. I mean, it doesn't get much more thorough or correct. They certainly were pastries, but they also were ridiculously delicious. I mentioned in my earlier post that I had no idea how to pronounce kolache either, so after I made them I went around offering people anything from "cherry galoshes" to "cherry goulash" to "cherry cough and walk away and don't finish the sentence". It didn't seem to matter because people already had their mouths full by the time I walked away, so all in all, a success.

Upon further inspection, and with the capital K in wikipedia instead of a lowercase k- I found a much longer entry. If you're curious you can check it out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolache  The page is pretty interesting, apparently in some parts of the US there are annual Kolache festivals! Of course, it is wikipedia so take it with a grain of salt (pun INTENDED). Last week I saw the F word in a post about special education, so you never know what you're going to find.

Anyway, the recipe is awesome if you have the time. I posted the recipe and some photos below to get you started, just be sure to read it through before you start. There are large amounts of time when the dough has to double itself and just sit, and apparently I had forgotten how to read when I first read the recipe and almost missed those parts. So here you go:

Ingredients:
1 package (1/4 ounce) active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
3/4 cup warm 2% milk
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 shortening
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 eggs
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 can (21 ounces) cherry pie filling
3 tablespoons butter, melted

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon butter, melted
5 teaspoons 2% milk

In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add the milk, sugar, shortening, salt, nutmeg, eggs and 2 cups of flour and beat until smooth. Keep adding the rest of the flour to make the dough soft (it not be the full 4 cups total, but that's okay)

Put dough on a floured service and knead it until smooth for about 7 minutes or so

Place the dough in a greased bowl and then turn it over so the greased side is on top. Cover it and let it rise for an hour. As you can see, I used this seasonally appropriate christmas towel as a cover.

That's the dough doubled!

Punch the dough down (not sure why it has to be so violent?) and divide it in half.  Shape each half into small balls.

The recipe says to place the balls 3 inches a part, on a greased baking sheet. 

Flatten each ball down to a 3 inch circle. Cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled, I let mine sit for about 30 minutes. (this photo is before doubling)

Make a dent in each roll and add a tablespoon of filling. Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes. Mine were in for 16 and came out just the right amount of brown.

Before removing from the pan, the recipe says you can brush the rolls with the melted butter. I didn't do this step because it wasn't a part of the original recipe, so I didn't know about it. So they are still good if you want to forgo the butter.

For the finishing touches, combine the glaze ingredients and and drizzle over the rolls. Make sure they're not too hot or the glaze will melt. But you knew that.

This recipe comes highly recommended, and they were also great for breakfast. That's the mark of a true dessert, I think.

On a side note, if you try any of these recipes let me know on the blog! It'd be great to hear if they worked well for you, or if they failed miserably because I left out a step. Any press is good press! Unless you got food poisoning, in which case keep it to yourself.

Check out the recipe here: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Coffee-Klatch-Kolaches/?addtobox=y

Source: Taste of Home Magazine, April/May 2011

Recipe online: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Coffee-Klatch-Kolaches/?addtobox=y

Submitted by: Carol Houdek, Minneapolis 

Posted in: Cherries,Pastry