Koláče / kolache – Traditional Czech Recipe

Koláče / kolache are one of the pillars of Central European baking and an important part of the local culture in the Czech Republic and everywhere Czech ex-pats have settled. In this post, you will learn how to make sweet raised dough from scratch and use that to make these beautiful pastries with three different, delicious homemade fillings.

Get ready to make some special treats that will become the star of your Sunday brunch or a pleasant afternoon coffee break delight.

If you like this recipe, you may want to check out this Traditional Czeck Linzer Cookies. If you are looking for other European treats, this compilation of European Christmas Cookies will give you some ideas.

For other Eastern European recipes with dough, check out our Pierogi with Potatoes and Cheese, Pierogi with Meat, or Pierogi with Sourkroaut and Mushrooms.

First, let me clear up a big misunderstanding about the delicious pastries. Please take the following with a grain of salt. Koláče (a word derived from kola—wheels or rounds), as they are called back in the Czech Republic/kolache [koh-lah-tcheh], is a word that’s already plural—used to talk about multiple units. The singular is koláč / kolach [koh-lahtch]. 

In the US, I often see or hear about “kolaches”, pronounced usually something like [cow-latch-cheese], which not only doesn’t make any sense linguistically, but they most often also have little in common with our actual Czech pastries. These derivative pastries, which likely originated as the correct thing,  can now look like small calzones and are filled with non-traditionally savory, often meat-based, fillings. Those are not what this article will be about. 

What I would love to introduce to you here are reasonably sweet, fluffy, delicious open-faced baked rounds of sweet yeasted dough with a nice amount of juicy filling in the middle, topped with a crunchy streusel.

The fillings may seem unusual at first but you will soon start to love them as they can be quite addictive. If you’re in a rush, you can just simply fill your koláče with fresh fruits like raw blueberries or peach slices and finish with the streusel on top.

In Czech, we traditionally bake koláče using fresh yeast cakes. They don’t seem as readily available in US grocery stores, so I developed this version of the recipe to skip the search. You can also use instant yeast with the same results. Just mix the same amount directly into your flower without the need to hydrate it beforehand.

Whole milk will allow the dough to be pliable and delicious. I don’t recommend substituting with less fatty milk in either the dough or the poppy seed filling.

Granulated sugar is used for the dough, powdered sugar is used for the fillings, and it is used for sprinkling on the finished pastries.

All-purpose unbleached flour – most go in the dough, and then some in the delicious crunchy streusel to top the pastries.

Organic lemon is always best when the recipe calls for the zest, like it does here.

Vanilla extract – just a little bit goes a long way. We don’t want to taste just the vanilla but also the lemon zest and the buttery goodness.

Butter – unsalted is the way to go when baking. This whole recipe uses a nice amount of butter for the dough, brushing the pastries before baking, as well as for the streusel on top.

Egg yolk for the dough and then a whole egg to brush the sides of the koláče before baking to make them shine.

Raw poppy seeds may be the most surprising ingredient in this recipe. I noticed that in the US, they are considered more of a spice and are usually sold in spice jars or other small containers. The Czech Republic is one of the world’s largest producers of poppy seed for alimentary use, and we use it in large amounts in many recipes, especially in pastries and sweet meals.

Almonds – ideally halved, but you can just use whole ones or slivers for decorating poppy seed filled koláče.

Semi-dried pitted prunes – this is my invention. When I first moved to the US, I couldn’t find another typical Czech ingredient: unsweetened plum butter. Back home, it can be easily found in any shop or made at home with Italian plums. When developing my recipe, I discovered that ground-up semi-dried prunes mixed with the other ingredients create a similar-tasting filling for my koláče!

Fresh cheese – another one of the fillings is traditionally made from a type of sweet fermented fresh cheese (soft tvaroh) which basically doesn’t exist in the US apart from some not-so-easily reachable ethnic stores. Instead, I developed another tasty substitute by mixing the same amounts of either cream cheese + skyr or mascarpone + strained cottage cheese. Some of the students in my baking classes who were Czech expats told me that they liked this filling even better than the original!

Raisins are added to the fresh cheese filling. Dipping them in rum for a few hours before baking will make the final product even more delicious. 

• Melt the butter. 
• Activate the yeast if not using instant. 
• Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl. Add the lemon zest, vanilla, the rest of the sugar, egg yolk, room temperature butter, and risen yeast mixture. Mix everything while gradually adding milk until the dough stops being sticky. It can be done by hand or in a mixer. 
• Let the dough rise for about an hour, covered in a warm spot, possibly by a heater, but never in a drafty spot! 

• Make the poppy seed filling – start by grinding the raw poppy seeds – coffee grinder works great for this, just make sure to clean it well afterwards. Pour milk into a pot, add the poppy seeds, powdered sugar, cinnamon, and rum. Bring to boil, and cook until the mixture thickens, about 8 minutes. Let cool completely.
• Make fresh cheese filling – mix fresh cheese of choice with powdered sugar, an egg, rum, and rum-soaked raisins to taste.
• Make plum filling – place your pitted semi-dried prunes in a food processor along with cold water and rum. Blend until it becomes a paste, add more water if necessary. 

• Place flour and sugar on the counter, cut cold butter into it, and blend with your hands until it resembles gravel or rough sand. This step can also easily be done in a food processor.

Step 4 Assemble your koláče

• Create 24 evenly sized balls. Place each one on the counter, flatten the top, and stretch it using your fingers, or press the bottom of a greased glass into the middle of each ball. The goal is to create a reservoir in the middle, large enough to allow enough filling to be placed there. The less dough and more filling, the better.
• Place either filling in the middle of each round indentation either using a spoon or a piping bag.
• You can also combine 2 (or all 3!) fillings, the poppy seed filling especially goes very well together with the fresh cheese filling and is a very traditional combination in Czech.
• If you wish for more elaborate patterns, create circles of various fillings using a pastry bag or just get creative, they will taste amazing in any case.

Step 5 –  Bake your pastries

• Preheat your oven to 360F and line your sheets with parchment paper. 
• Move your koláče to the lined sheets and brush some beaten egg along the edges.
• Sprinkle some streusel on top; use as much as you like. The truth is that as this bakes, the streusel will hide all your beautiful patterns but it will add so much flavor and delicious crunch I highly recommend it anyway.
• Or decorate the poppy seed ones with halved almonds.
• Allow your koláče to rise for 10 minutes, then bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.
• Let cool on a cooling rack (careful if you cannot wait; the fillings stay hot for a bit!), sprinkle some powdered sugar on top, and enjoy with your favorite drink of choice, hot cocoa being mine in this case.

If you follow this recipe, I can guarantee you’ll succeed. As indicated in the recipe, using instant yeast and utilizing a food processor whenever possible will make things go even smoother.

Please read my bonus tips for two more great little recipes!

Actually, there are very many, as koláče happens to be one of the most traditional Czech recipes. For example, in some parts of Moravia we can find an equally delicious variety where one filling is closed inside the pastry, and another one goes on top of it. Svatební koláčky / wedding little koláče are very small, perhaps one or two bites.

On the other hand, everybody would know chodské koláče (kolache from Chodsko region in the West) and the similar valašské frgály (kolache from Wallachia region in the East) – both very large and full of delicious fillings; the ones mentioned in our recipe or variations made with apple butter, pear filling cooked from ground up dried pears, or many other goodies.

There are no traditional savory fillings when it comes to real koláče. There are similar kinds of pastries that originated in the Czech community in Texas, called klobasniky (“sausagers”). They are filled with sausage and sometimes even jalapenos or cheese or other savory fillings.

Real koláče are rounded in shape, so make sure they have enough room on the baking sheet. The squared kind, thin on filling that we sometimes see is a result of them being stuffed into a high-sided baking dish with not enough room (and usually not enough filling), so they rose to the top instead of to the sides.

As you get more proficient working with this recipe, you can try to make fewer, much larger koláče. In many regions of the Czech Republic, those are common during religious and folk holidays, and people are willing to pay their weight in gold. They come with beautiful intricate patterns created with piping bags full of fillings. They are then cut into eight slices, similar to how you would cut your pizza. They are even sold in smaller-sized pizza boxes in holiday markets.

You can use the dough to make another traditional Czech pastry called buchty (buchteln). For this recipe, you start by making 24 balls of dough. Stretch the dough, place the filling of choice inside, and round the balls up again. Brush some melted butter all over each filled ball and place them, seam down, tightly in a greased baking pan with taller sides. About 12 of them fit in a standard 9×13 baking dish. While the oven is preheating to reach 390F with the rack in the middle position, allow the buchty to rise to room temperature for about 15 minutes. Once at the temperature, bake for 10 minutes. Then, without opening the oven, lower the temperature to 370 F and bake for another 10-20 minutes until golden. 

Once baked, place the baking dish on a cooling rack and allow it to cool down for a few minutes. Then cover it with a wooden cutting board, a large plate, or a baking sheet and, using kitchen mittens, flip the baking dish onto the selected base. If you greased up your baking dish well, the buchty should come out easily! Flip back so the top is upwards, and let cool a bit more. Sprinkle powdered sugar on top. Gently pull it apart and enjoy!

There is another use for the dough, once you’ve mastered it, that you can use for a sweet meal. You’ll make about 48 small balls this time; brush each one up with some melted butter, then place them in the buttered baking dish and allow to rise for 15 minutes. Bake at 370F for about 20-25 minutes or until light golden brown. These are called buchtičky, as in “little buchty”. They are typically eaten warm, with a variation on vanilla Crème anglaise made with white wine or just a more liquidy, silky vanilla custard poured over them. Try this sometime as a nice sweet meal or a delicious dessert. Czech people, especially kids, love it.

DOBROU CHUŤ! / Bon Appétit!