From the Kitchen of WoodmenLife SVP & CIO Ken Knaub: Kolaches

WoodmenLife is committed to supporting your family. So we thought it would be nice to get to know each other better by sharing a little from the WoodmenLife family. Here, Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer Ken Knaub shares a family recipe and the memories that make it so special. Hopefully when you make it, you can create special family memories of your own.

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I come from a proud Czech family that loves to bake. Kolaches and rolls were always my favorites growing up — nothing compares to the smell of a kitchen filled with fresh pastry in the oven.

Kolaches are made with a sweet yeast dough, shaped with a small hollow in the center, and filled with apricot, poppy seed, or cherry filling. The aroma of them baking filled our house and signaled that something special was coming out of the oven.

Making kolaches takes patience — and a little bit of flour on your nose.

This recipe has been handed down for generations. It started with my great-grandma, who was always in the kitchen baking something amazing. She taught my grandma how to make them, and Grandma’s kolaches were legendary. My grandma passed the tradition to my mom, who admits there were a few flopped batches along the way before she mastered it — but she’s now the undisputed kolache queen in our family. My aunt gave it a try once, but after one less-than-perfect batch, she decided she preferred eating them over baking them.

When the tradition reached my sister and me, we mostly had fun playing in the flour and dough — I don’t think much baking actually happened.

Kolaches are more than just a dessert to us — they’re a family story baked into every bite.

Kolaches

All-purpose roll dough:

1½ cup scalded milk

1½ cakes fresh yeast

1 large egg

2 egg yolks

3 Tbsp sugar

1½ tsp salt

4 cups flour (approximately)

3/8 cup melted tallow

Put the milk into crock and cool to lukewarm. Add the crumbled yeast, the egg, egg yolks, sugar, and salt. Beat well with egg beater or mixer. Beat in enough flour to make dough about as thick as cake batter. Beat in melted tallow. Add enough flour to make soft dough. Beat until satiny. Grease and cover dough. Set into a warm place to rise (about 86 degrees). When double in size, punch down and let rise again. When double in size the second time, turn out on bread board and form into kolaches, buchti, or crescent rolls as desired.

Making the kolache:

Cut dough into pieces and form into balls (about walnut size). Place on a greased pan, leaving spaces of about 1½ inches between them. Brush them with melted lard and set them in a warm place. In about 6 or 7 minutes flatten the balls with your four fingers. Let rise until soft enough to work easily. Then, working on one at a time, make an indentation or well in the flattened ball, pulling the dough out from the center, using the middle and pointer fingers of both hands. Fill the indentations with your favorite fruit filling (apricot or cherry, for example). Continue until you have finished the pan. Set back into warm place to finish rising; then bake at 425 to 450 degrees until golden brown. Brush with melted lard. Remove from pan with pancake turner. Cover with tea towel and cool. Serve plain or decorate with powdered sugar frosting and coconut as desired.

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