My grandma makes a wonderful Czech pastry called the Kolach. It is sort of like a round bun with an indent on top that is filled with poppyseed filling, apricot, cherry, prune, etc. I was wondering if there is anything else that anyone has for info- such as story behind,meaning of name, etc. Would really appreciate it.
The kolach, or "kolac" in Czech (with the little slanted line above the "a" and the little v-shaped mark above the "c"), is a very typical Czech pastry. It is made from yeast dough that is let to rise for about an hour before the kolac (singular) or kolace (plural) are made. There are several types of kolace and they differ by size and fillings/toppings. You can either make one large, flat, round kolac and spread several different things on top, like plum, apricot, red currant or other jam, cottage cheese, poppyseed, walnut paste, etc. This kind is often called the Domazlicky kolac because it is popular in the Domazlice region. Or you can make many smaller kolace from your dough. You fill a small piece of dough with cottage cheese, poppyseed, walnut, apple, or other filling, close it up, shape it into a round pastry, make a small indent on top as you described and fill that indent with fruit jam or other topping. There are also the little wedding kolacky, which are small, bite-size kolace that are usually round in shape, filled with one of the fillings and don't have the indent on top. As you can see, you can experiment with sizes and combine different fillings and toppings based on what you like. As far as the word "kolac" is concerned, it sounds like it comes from the word "kolo", which means "the wheel", since the traditional kolac is round in shape.
Wow! Thanx, I'll have to tell my grandma about that-she'll be really interested. Do you know anything about rolicks, too?
