Willa Cather's Kolaches

I'm baaack! I should've been back days ago. I took my orals on Monday . . . but then I had classes and I had to clean my very messy house and it's been quite the social butterfly type of week around here, and, oh yes, I had to sleep. This is the first week in over a month when I haven't had to wake up at 5:30 am everyday to start reading. Sleeping has been wonderful! During my final push to prepare for my orals I didn't bake or cook at all. I reverted to my former take-out, pick-up, order-in self. Would you believe that although I've always loved cooking, I never, ever used to cook? When I graduated from college and I lived with my sister, the two of us were the take-out queens. We lived off of the prepared foods from Central Market and Whole Foods, and when we didn't, we went out! I didn't realize how easy it is to fall back into the habit of not cooking, and I've had a hard time motivating myself to cook dinner lately. Well, in my defense, Dudley and I have had one function or another to go to every night this week, so cooking dinner hasn't really been an issue.

I did bake these kolaches for my orals presentation on Monday, though. Often when I'm researching I'll come across really interesting, completely useless-for-my-purposes articles. I came across an article by Ann Romines called "Kolache Controversies" that centers around the Kolache controversy in Nebraska: the proper shape, proper filling, even the propper plural of the pastry is all up for debate in this article. I love Willa Cather's novels, and I immediately requested this article through my library. Now, full disclosure, the recipe isn't Willa Cather's recipe, it's her goddaughter's recipe. If you're interested in the article, I highly recommend you enlist a local librarian's help to track it down. It's short, and it includes this recipe for kolaches at the end of it. (Side Note: There may be kolache controversies in Nebraska, but I'll add my own to the mix. In Texas, Kolaches are very popular breakfast food, but the sort of kolache that I'm most familiar with is a roll stuffed with sausage and cheese in the center. Who knew how many variations existed? Certainly not me!)

I read through this recipe several times before I made it, and it didn't seem that complicated. What I neglected to do, however, was use my noggin to read between the lines. This is supposedly an old family recipe, and it certainly seemed that way while I was making these kolaches. For example, the recipe calls for 6 cups of flour; after I added 6 cups of flour I was still stuck with an incredibly soupy mess. But then, the recipe doesn't call for kneading the dough, just stirring the dough (I've never seen a stirred yeast dough before, but I don't have a great deal of experience). Also, I noticed that you have to grease your hands to work with the dough when shaping the kolaches, so I think it's supposed to be sticky, even though the recipe just describes it as a "soft" dough. Well, after 7 or 8 cups of flour, I still had a very sticky dough! The only dough I can compare it to is Dorie Greenspan's kugelhopf dough, but it's still much stickier than that. It was sturdy enough to shape (just barely) and sturdy enough to hold the fillings, so I think that I got close -- though I don't have any experience with the real thing to go by.

According to the article, kolaches can be made in a square shape or a round shape, and there are any number of fillings that you can use for the kolaches including peach, prune, apricot, cherry, pineapple, poppyseed, and cottage cheese (which I assume is similar to the filling in a cream cheese danish). I used apricot, strawberry, and sour cherry jams to fill my kolaches, and then to mix it up a bit, I also filled some with lemon curd. The pastries are supposed to be topped with shredded coconut . . . I love coconut but it just didn't seem right here, so I left it off.

The perils of working with such soft and sticky dough really pay off in the finished product. These pastries are lovely and soft -- perfect with a cup of coffee in the morning or as an afternoon snack. The professors on my orals committee couldn't get enough of them! The dough is slightly sweet, yeasty, and pillowy soft. I don't have permission to reprint the recipe, but if you'd like to have it, there are two options: a) contact a librarian at your local library and have her track down the article for you or b) email me or leave me a comment with your email and I will share the recipe with you that way.

Note:  In the comments section, a reader graciously allowed that the Willa Cather Pioneer Newsletter that contains this article is available online through this link. If you scroll to the bottom lefthand corner of the page you can hit download and access the entire newsletter and "Kolache Controversies" -- how exciting!