Lucie Monk Carter
In the Country Roads kitchen, we baked blueberry, cream cheese, and apricot kolaches. We hope Totsy Doernhoefer would be proud.
I grew up in the tightknit Central Texas Czech community. As the daughter of a pastor for the Brethren, a Czech Protestant denomination, I had dozens of surrogate grandparents and remember our potlucks fondly, mostly for the incredible pastries that I hoarded at every single gathering. The Czech community in Texas takes their heritage very seriously, passing traditions and recipes down through family/church connections that have ultimately found their way to me and others from my generation. I am happy and proud to have collected hundreds of these precious pieces of my family’s history over time and even try my hand at a few of them every year. I inevitably screw something up, but one of these days I swear that I will bake a kolache that rivals Totsy Doernhoefer’s.
Totsy’s Kolaches
Ingredients:
3 eggs, well beaten
½ cup sugar
1 cup milk, warm
4 cups flour
½ cup melted butter or margarine
1 tsp salt
1 ½ package dry yeast
Method:
Place the 3 eggs in a large mixing bowl and beat well; add sugar, milk, butter, salt, yeast, and flour. Note: dissolve yeast in the milk. Mix real well and let stand in warm place until dough is double in size [two hours]. Knead well and let rise again [about one hour]. With a teaspoon, pinch small amount of dough (about the size of a large walnut). Drop on table which has had flour sprinkled on it. Roll each small ball of dough between palms of hands and place on a buttered cookie sheet. Place 2 dozen on cookie sheet. Let set about 10 or 15 minutes, then punch holes with fingers and fill cavity with favorite filling, such as prune, peach, apricot, pineapple, cherry, cream cheese, poppy seed, and many others. [Preheat oven to 450 F.] Butter each kolache and let stand for about 20 minutes, then place in oven and bake [about 10–15 minutes, until kolaches are golden]. After kolaches are baked, butter each and sprinkle with sugar.
Read more about the Czech churches of Texas on page 65. Find a recipe for Dorothy Zabcik’s Vanocka (Christmas Bread) here.
