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Well, well, well! Look what I made! I’m so pleased. All credit must be given to Andrea Slonecker over at Food & Wine whose video on this made all the difference. These probably look like croissants, but they’re not, these are bread. The bread dough is rich in eggs and butter. Please review Andrea’s video and make sure you have enough eggs (5) prior to starting.
- Dough Ingredients
- 3 cups flour, divided
- 1 envelope active dry yeast (2-1/4 tsp.)
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1 cup milk, heated to between 100 and 115 degrees F
- 1/2 cup butter (4 oz. or 1 stick), melted
- 3 large egg yolks
- 1 tsp. kosher salt
- Streusel Ingredients
- 1 Tbsp. melted butter
- 2 Tbsp. sugar
- 2 Tbsp. flour
- Cream Cheese Filling Ingredients
- 8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
- 2 Tbsp. powdered sugar
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 tsp. lemon zest
- Egg Wash Ingredients
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 Tbsp. milk
- A Variety of Jelly or Jam or Pie Filling
Dough: I used a stand mixer. Stir together 1 cup flour, yeast, and sugar. Stir in warm milk and let sit until bubbles form across the top of the mixture. While you’re waiting for that to happen, in a separate bowl, mix together the melted butter, egg yolks, and salt. Stir the butter-egg mixture into the activated yeast mixture. Mix well. One cup at a time, stir in the remaining 2 cups flour. Let it knead on low speed for about 4 minutes, only adding flour if absolutely necessary if the dough is still tacky. Add as little flour as possible, it’s supposed to be a very soft dough. Once the dough is smooth, cover and set aside to rise until doubled, 1 to 1-1/2 hours.
Streusel: While the dough is rising, in a very small bowl, stir together melted butter, sugar, and flour. Set it aside so that once the butter cools and firms up you can break the mixture into a crumbly mixture to sprinkle on top of the Kolaches. For now, just set it aside to cool down.
Dough again: Prepare a sheet pan with parchment paper. Once the dough has risen, punch it down and divide it into a dozen equal pieces. Roll each piece into a smooth round ball. Place the dough balls, evenly spaced, onto the prepared sheet pan, cover with a damp cloth, and let them rise until nearly doubled, about 45 minutes.
Cream Cheese Filling: While the dough balls are doing their rise . . . In a food processor or mixer, stir together all the ingredients (cream cheese, powdered sugar, egg yolk, and lemon zest) until smooth. I used a food processor and it worked well. Set aside.
Egg Wash: In a very small bowl mix together the large egg yolk and milk.
Assembly: Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Once the dough balls have nearly doubled in size, using several fingers, make a well in the center of each dough ball about 2″ in diameter. This is where watching the video comes in handy. She really dug a spread-out center in each dough ball. Make sure not to pierce the bottoms.
Once each dough ball has a well, use a pastry brush to brush the sides of the dough balls with the egg wash.
Place one tablespoon of cream cheese filling into each well and leave an imprint for the jam filling to go next.
Place one tablespoon of jelly, jam, or whatever kind of filling you’re using into each cream cheese well.
Break up the firmed streusel topping and sprinkle it across the tops of the Kolaches.
Bake at 375 degrees F for 20 minutes or so. Mine took quite a bit longer than that. I waited until the edges were a dark brown.
Enjoy! These are beautiful and delicious. They weren’t hard to make.
Notes: I used bread flour, but I wonder if all-purpose would have been better. This dough is like challah or brioche, so it’s supposed to be soft. I always use salted butter, but I don’t think it matters. I used my stand mixer for the dough and my food processor for the cream cheese filling. I use extra-large eggs and I think that’s one reason it took longer to bake, because my Kolaches had more liquid. I also didn’t spread mine out as much as Andrea did in the video which I think also contributed to the longer bake time, mine were thicker. Andrea didn’t put cream cheese into all of hers, she just put jam into a few of them. It still worked great. I am so, so pleased that these turned out. I love it when I have all the ingredients on hand and it goes according to plan.
I made this with a little of this and a little of that. It turned out awesome, so I’ll be wanting to make this again.
- Ingredients
- Olive oil
- 3-4 cloves garlic, finely minced
- 3 sprigs fresh thyme leaves
- 1/4 tsp. crushed saffron threads
- 1 tsp. dried basil
- 1/4 tsp. cayenne
- 1 tsp. sea salt
- Fresh ground pepper
- 1-1/2 cups dry white wine
- 11 oz. can tomato puree (you could try same amount of passata or homemade puree)
- 2-3 cups chicken stock (or vegetable broth)
- 1 lb. mixed fresh shellfish, shells removed (weight after shells removed)
- 1/4 lb. white fish
- 2 Tbsp. fresh-squeezed lemon juice
- Crusty bread, optional
Swazz some olive oil around in a large pot. Stir in garlic and spices and stir fry until garlic is cooked, but not browned. Stir in wine and let it simmer for awhile. Stir in the tomato puree. Stir in enough stock to give a consistency that you like. Don’t forget the fish will lose some of its water into the pot and make everything a bit runnier than now, so a bit thicker than you like will be best. Let the sauce simmer for ten minutes. Stir in shellfish and white fish. Squeeze lemon juice into the pot. Remove from heat once the fish is cooked through. Serve with crusty bread. Serves 3-4.
Notes: I happen to have a case of canned tomato puree. It is not tomato paste and it is not tomato sauce. It’s a different kind of thing and you will have to make a serious adjustment if you don’t have it. Don’t know, can’t help you, sorry.
I bought a pound of fresh mixed shellfish at a local fish mart. Everything was already shelled. I think the mix was sold especially for making stew. There were squid rings, surimi, small shrimp, bay scallops, clams, mussels, and other things I probably missed. This recipe would work well with shellfish still in the shells, too, just adjust the amounts.
My brother has recently gifted us several pounds of ground moose, so that’s what I used, but ground bison or ground beef will work just as well. I’m basing my recipe on fivehearthome.com‘s. This is a really quick week-night dinner for busy people.
- Ingredients
- A bit of olive oil
- 1/2 onion, small dice
- 1/2 green bell pepper, small dice
- 1 lb. ground beef (or other as mentioned above)
- 2 garlic cloves (minced)
- 8 oz. tomato sauce
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 2 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
- 2 Tbsp. brown sugar
- 1 tsp. Dijon mustard
- 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
- 1/4 tsp. onion powder
- Ground pepper to taste
- Hamburger buns
- Butter
- Toppings as desired (sliced cheese, sliced dill pickles, coleslaw, etc.)
Swazz a bit of olive oil around a skillet and heat it. Saute onion and green bell pepper until onion is transparent. Remove the onion and green bell pepper to a bowl and set aside. Into the skillet, put the ground meat. Let it brown. About half way to brown, add the garlic. Drain off any fat accumulation. If using lean meat this will not be necessary.
In a bowl add the tomato sauce, ketchup, Worcestershire, brown sugar, Dijon, garlic powder, onion powder, and black pepper to taste. Stir well. Stir in the onions and green peppers. Stir the sauce into the ground meat and garlic in skillet. Bring to a simmer and let it simmer for about ten minutes.
Butter the hamburger buns and toast under the broiler. Dollop the ground beef mixture onto the prepared buns. Add your favorite toppings. Chow down!
FYI: we used Dill Pickle Chips as one of the topping options. You can find the recipe here. These dill chips are also awesome on hamburgers and pulled pork sandwiches or sliders. Yum!
This recipe is based upon one found in The Kids in the Kitchen Cookbook by Lois Levine (Macmillan Co, 1968). I had this cookbook from my teenage years, but didn’t really use it A LOT until I had kids. The gender role assumptions are hilarious to read now, but the recipes are very good. We have made this dessert regularly since 1998. It is super simple to make. (More better photos next time!)
- Ingredients
- 1 cup graham cracker crumbs (Gluten-Free Graham Crackers work well, if needed)
- 1/4 cup butter, melted
- 1 lb. cream cheese, softened
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- Pie filling
Mix together graham cracker crumbs and melted butter. Press into 24 paper-lined muffin cups.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Beat together cream cheese, eggs, sugar, and vanilla until smooth. Divide evenly into prepared muffin cups. Bake at 350 degrees F for 10-15 minutes, until set. Cool. Top each with 1 Tbsp. of your favorite pie filling.
You can remove the paper liners before adding the pie filling or have your guests remove them after serving. These are very easy to transport while in the paper liners.
Foods Passion 