Authentic Czech kolache: Fluffy dough and three kinds of filling
A bakery and kitchen full of life
What is the secret to classic Czech kolache? A well-managed leavened dough! It's not advisable to skimp on the ingredients – quality flour, whole milk and real butter are the basis for success here. The ingredients that come in the bowl must be at room temperature, and the kneaded dough needs to rest in a temperature-controlled environment.
"Beware of the cold! Cold and draughts are not conducive to rising. It's not for nothing that our great-grandmothers worked with the dough on a wooden roller – a wooden work surface keeps the dough at room temperature, while stainless steel is cold. Just as lukewarm liquid is used to knead yeast dough, the other ingredients should not come straight from the fridge either," explains Jaroslav Kozdělka, who runs the bakery in the Eska restaurant in Karlin and leads sweet baking courses at the UM culinary training centre.
The yeast, milk, eggs and butter are removed to the kitchen counter ideally an hour in advance, so they can come to room temperature. The dough will then rise better and not shrink.
Leavened Czech kolache
Quantity: 22 small cakes
For the dough:
- 960 g of plain flour
- 160 g caster sugar
- 30 g vanilla sugar
- 15 g salt
- 55 g fresh yeast
- 480 ml lukewarm whole milk
- 2 eggs
- 150 g butter
- 1 beaten egg and melted butter for spreading
Procedure:
- Put all the dry ingredients – flour, caster and vanilla sugar and salt – into a bowl. Mix. Crumble the yeast into the mixture, add the milk and the two eggs. Move to a food processor with a kneading hook, and knead slowly for 5-7 minutes until the dough is compact.
- Add the diced butter to the dough. Knead until a smooth dough forms (depending on the quality of the flour, it usually takes about 10 minutes). The butter must be completely incorporated.
- Cover the dough in the bowl with cling film or a clean tea towel. Leave it in a warm place to rise for about an hour, until roughly double in volume.
- Before the dough rises, prepare the fillings (see below).
- Divide the risen dough into equal-sized pieces (approx. 80 g) and shape into loaves. Cover with cling film and leave to rise for a further 20 minutes.
- Place the risen loaves on baking trays lined with baking paper. Using a cookie cutter, press them into round shapes, brush with beaten egg and fill to taste (align the filling in the centre of the cakes, but don't overdo it with the amount of filling and don't make a mound, it will run off more easily when baking). Turn the oven on to 180-200 °C – they will finish baking before it heats up.
- Bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Brush the edges with melted butter immediately after baking.
For curd filling:
- ½ kg of full-fat curd cheese
- 150 g caster sugar
- 60 g egg yolks (from about 3 eggs)
Drain the curd through a cheesecloth. Then sweeten it and mix it with the egg yolks.
For poppy seed filling:
- 1½ l milk
- 9 g ground cinnamon
- 340 g caster sugar
- 300 g fine semolina
- 650 ground poppy seeds
- zest and juice of 1 unwaxed lemon
Boil the milk with the cinnamon, sugar and semolina to a thin paste. Stir in the poppy seeds, boil briefly and season with lemon juice and finely grated zest.
For nut filling:
- 1½ l milk
- 750 g caster sugar
- 400 g fine semolina
- 1,2 kg walnuts, dry roasted and ground
Bring the milk, sugar and semolina to the boil. Cook until slightly thickened and then add the nuts. Bring to the boil and set aside.
Some extra tips from the pros:
As an alternative method, you can mix half of the lukewarm milk, yeast, about 1 teaspoon of sugar and 1 teaspoon of flour. In the meantime, combine the remaining flour, both sugars, salt and eggs in a bowl, add the remaining milk and the resulting sauce and knead into a non-sticky dough. Finally, incorporate the butter and bring the bowl to room temperature to help the dough rise properly. You already know the next steps!
Do you have only dried yeast at home? Feel free to reach for it. Just remember that you can't replace fresh yeast in the recipe with dried yeast in a 1:1 ratio – dried yeast is 1.5 times stronger! So always use 1.5 times less.
The dough can be prepared the day before – knead it the night before and leave it to rise overnight in the fridge. As well as a loaf of dough, you can put pre-shaped and already filled kolache in the fridge. The rested dough will lose a little volume, but it will be very easy to work with (follow the same procedure as with fresh dough). The baked result will be soft, fluffy and tender!
If you do not have a special dough shaping machine, shape the kolache with the smooth round bottom of the jar. Coat it lightly in flour so it doesn't stick to the dough.
Worried that the filling will come off in the oven due to the heat? Before filling, coat only coat the edges with the beaten egg, not the centres.
Do you have any filling left? Transfer it to the fridge where it will keep for up to 5 days. Great excuse to bake a second batch of kolache, what do you say?
The leavened kolache in Eska are also filled with fresh, preserved or frozen fruit. This should be thawed and drained – this way, the fruit doesn't leak too much juice during baking, the dough doesn't shrink due to excessive moisture, and if the fruit is placed on top of a custard filling, it won't be completely discoloured from the leaking juice.
Immediately after baking, the hot kolache can still be brushed with melted butter mixed with rum (the ratio is up to your taste), they will then be beautifully soft. In the Prague bakery U Kalendů they brush them with a mixture of butter and honey, which guarantees a glossy and fragrant result.
- Do you like crumble? Sprinkle it on the cakes before baking! Prepare it with semi-coarse flour, caster sugar and butter in the ratio 1½ parts flour : 1 part sugar : 1 part butter. The crumble itself can then be flavoured with a fat of your choice (try poppy seed or coconut oil) or by adding spices (ground cinnamon, nutmeg or cardamom). You can play around with the texture – stir in some oatmeal or coarsely chopped nuts.
