Kolaches – Let the Christmas Cookie baking begin!

Dec 07, 2015 in cookies, heritage recipes, holiday fare, recipes, sweets, christmas, cookies, holiday, kolaches, sweets. Read the original on: Oat&Sesame

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Kolache are Czech pastries. TraditionallyÂ they are not cookies, but doughy yeast buns filled with jam or poppy seeds. My sister-in-law Stacy, who is also of Czech heritage,Â has a family recipe for the bun version that sheâ€™s promised to share with me soon. (hint hint Stacy!)

In my family we always make aÂ cookie version and I have to confess that Iâ€™ve eaten a bunch of these prematurely.

I made aÂ batch for a recipe contestÂ on Food52. Of course we ate a few of those, but the rest IÂ frozeÂ for Christmas.

When I went to look for them the other day they were â€œmissing.â€ Iâ€™m not making any accusations here, but there is a certain male in my household that is clearly to blame for this incident.

My mom also brought a batch for Thanksgiving since I wonâ€™t see her at Christmas.

So I think we are done for the season with these, but there is still time for the rest of you!

Kolaches

Author: Oat&Sesame

Serves: 24 cookies, depending on size

Ingredients

Â½ pound butter, softened slightly (2 sticks)
8 ounces cream cheese, softened slightly
2 cups flour, sifted
1 cup powdered sugar, plus more for sprinkling
1 jar preserves (not jelly), flavor of your choice

Instructions

Cream butter and cream cheese.
Mix in flour and powdered sugar to form a smooth dough. If the dough seems too soft and buttery, I often add a Â¼ cup more powdered sugar.
Gather dough into a ball, flatten a round disk, saran wrap and chill for about 1 hour or overnight. This makes it easier to roll out and cut into circles.
Roll dough out to somewhere between a Â¼" and Â½ " thickness. Using a 3-4" biscuit or round cookie cutter, cut circles, rerolling the scraps until you've used all the dough.
Place circles onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Using your thumb make a deep impression in the center of each cookie. Fill that impression with about 1 tsp of preserve. (too much preserves will cause it to overflow, still yummy, but not pretty)
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Bake until just beginning to brown on the bottom edges. 10-12 min. Cool completely. Sprinkle with powdered sugar right before serving.
Cookies can be made ahead of time and frozen. If you freeze them, don't sprinkle with powdered sugar until ready to serve.

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