Kolaches

After a long absence, I am officially back in the cooking groove, so I thought I better start posting again. This summer has been a mess of activities and busyness and I have had no time to try new recipes or even think about my cooking blog. But for the Fourth of July holiday, I had the pleasure of baking some kolaches for a family reunion on my husband's side of the family. Yeah!! What could be more exciting than a cooking challenge of this magnitude? Let me explain....

My mother-in-law's heritage is Czech and whenever they gather for a reunion, kolaches are a menu staple. I have attended many of these reunions over the years, and have admired the beautiful kolaches baked by skilled Czech bakers. Baked goods are not my forte', so these women and their baking were out of my league completely. Their reunions are held every other year, and each family takes a turn organizing the event. This one fell on our family to take the lead. One afternoon back in the spring as we sat around discussing ideas and putting plans in place, I took a deep breath and asked my mother-in-law if I could make the kolaches for the reunion. Would she agree to it? Would I be an acceptable substitute for the old school bakers who had done it for years? I mean, if the kolaches arent' right......well....let's not even go there. :) In the end, she agreed. Dave's aunt and I would each make 4 dozen. The pressure was on.....

I am happy to report my kolaches turned out great after much trial and error. They were certainly worth the effort. I am anxious to make them again for fun. I used a recipe from Allrecipes called Kolaches from the Bread Machine. Look it up if you're in need of a good kolache recipe. The only change I made was to add a streusel topping to them. It just made them look prettier.