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cream cheese kolaches

cream cheese kolaches

Most people assume that I grew up in Portland because I call it home and speak of it so fondly, but here's a fun fact: I actually went to high school in Houston, Texas. I had a very boring and typical suburban childhood experience: a trampoline in the backyard, movies every Friday, and hitching rides from friends to eat lunch off-campus at fast food places. The only really remarkable thing was the amount of crap that I was able to eat without too much consequence. My senior year (the year we upperclassmen were allowed to take lunch off campus), my friends and I would rotate through the slew of fast food options near our school: Burger King, McDonald's, Whataburger, Pizza Hut. Rinse and repeat. On Fridays, someone in my first period Spanish class would usually bring in Shipley's Donuts for breakfast. I ate it all, indiscriminately and with much enthusiasm, and only weighed about 110lbs soaking wet. Yep, those were the days.

One day, my Spanish teacher (who, in retrospect, was tired of dealing with the consequences of us cracked out on sugar, shortening, and lard at 8AM on Friday morning), surprised us with a box of pastries from The Kolache Factory. Surprisingly, most of the class (including myself) had never heard of the Czech pastries before (despite the fact that, hey, kolaches were actually pretty ubiquitous in Houston). We peered cautiously into the box — some looked like ordinary dinner rolls; others mini danishes with a fruit topping but lacking in the traditional pastry glaze. A bite into one of the dinner rolls revealed a fluffy brioche bun stuffed with sausage and cheese, similar to a pig-in-a-blanket. The sweet ones were like a cross between a jelly-filled donut and a cream cheese danish. And just like that, we were hooked and Donut Fridays became Kolache Fridays.

After graduating from high school, I rarely came back to Houston. Kolaches became a distant memory — they're not as easily available outside of Texas. Sure, there was a place in Portland (run by Houston expats) and interestingly enough, there's a kolache place in my new Brooklyn neighborhood (also run by Texan expats). But they're rare, and most of the time when I say the word "kolaches" (pronounced ko-LA-cheese), I'm greeted with "BLESS YOU!" #dadjoke

And until receiving a copy of America's Test Kitchen's new book, Bread Illustrated, it never occurred to me to try making them at home. I've never been much of a bread baker, you see. I've always found the entire thing to be laborious and intimidating. Braiding challah, twisting garlic knots, and shaping perfectly round buns — I've always found all of those to be such daunting challenges. But the carefully outlined instructions and incredibly detailed step-by-step photos in the book were able to convince me otherwise. And sure enough, after an afternoon of baking and with no loss of any blood, sweat, and tears, I found myself with a batch of kolaches that tasted exactly like the glorious ones I remembered from high school: fluffy and buttery, with a tangy and very faintly lemony cream cheese center.


This post was done in partnership with America's Test Kitchen, who provided a copy of Bread Illustrated and some additional baking tools to make this post happen. All thoughts and opinions are my own, and I genuinely believe that the folks at America's Test Kitchen are some of the most trustworthy cooking and baking experts out there. As always, thank you for supporting Hummingbird High and all my awesome sponsors!

• This is one of those recipes where it's important to pay attention to the ingredients and their temperature. The recipe uses instant yeast, which is distinctive from active dry yeast in that it doesn't need to be activated at a warm temperature. However, it does work best if all the other ingredients it's mixed with (like milk and eggs) is at room temperature. 


• Not a fan of ricotta? Feel free to substitute it with an equal amount of cream cheese for an all cream cheese kolache. You can also create a fruit-filled variation by swapping the cream cheese with jam instead!

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