If you’re looking for a soft, yummy, eggy bread recipe, this is the one. I have to admit failure here, though: I just can’t seem to get the stacked braids to stay upright when I cook them. I finally resorted to my old standby six-strand braid, and the results are much more attractive.

This vianočka is pretty close to the version you can buy in the shops in Slovakia, and it’s easy enough to make the dough in the evening then bake in the morning. It’s sweet, lightly flavored with lemon, and makes great french toast if you don’t manage to eat the whole thing before it gets a little stale.

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Vianocka – modern version

This is a largeish recipe – I’ve taken to dividing it in two and leaving half the dough to sit in the fridge to bake a second loaf a day or two later. If you bake a half-sized loaf, it should be done in about 25 minutes. I often substitute about half a cup of oil for the butter when I’m in a hurry or low on butter.

Ingredients

Makes one loaf

• 4 cups/480 grams flour
• 1 packet instant yeast
• 1 cup/240 ml milk
• 3 oz/85 g butter
• 3 eggs, plus one yolk for the egg wash
• 1/3 cup/80 g sugar
• 2 tsp salt
• zest of one lemon (about 1½ tsp)
• 1/3 cup/40 g raisins (optional)
• ¼ cup/20 g sliced almonds for topping (optional)

Method

• Warm the milk and butter in a small saucepan until butter has melted; set aside to cool. Stir together 1 cup of the flour and the yeast in a large bowl. When milk mixture has cooled to lukewarm, stir it into the flour mixture until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and set aside until it is bubbly, about 15 minutes.
• Add the three eggs, sugar, salt, and lemon zest. Mix in the flour gradually until you have a soft dough that is still a bit sticky. Stir in the raisins.
• Turn out the dough and knead until it is smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Place the dough in a large clean bowl, cover with plastic wrap and leave to rise until doubled, about two hours, or overnight in the refrigerator.
• When dough has doubled, divide it into 6 portions, each weighing about 6oz/180 grams. Roll each portion into a rope, and braid the six ropes together, pinching each end to seal.
• Cover the braid with a cloth and leave to rise for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees f/190 C.
• Brush the braid with the egg yolk mixed with about a teaspoon of water; sprinkle almonds over the top if desired (the loaf expands quite a lot when baked, so you can be generous with the topping!).
• Bake for 50-55 minutes or until top is a dark golden brown.

Given the contents of this blog, it might surprise you to learn that in fact we try to eat sensibly during the week and reserve our most decadent dining for the weekends. This recipe definitely falls into the category of indulgence. When I was living in New York, I discovered chocolate babka at Zabar’s, which is pretty much the Platonic ideal of bread + chocolate. Or at least my ideal. While it most definitely originates in Central Europe, I haven’t seen babka in a bakery there (the fact that there aren’t many Jewish people left to bake it being the obvious reason). We have tried a variety of similar things with different names, all good but not quite babka.

Valerian got me Peter Reinhart’s Artisan Breads Every Day for my birthday this year and I just recently got around to trying to bake a loaf of my own babka from there. It turned out better than I could have hoped, and it certainly didn’t survive the weekend. Perfect with a cup of coffee, this is a treat that is worth the calories.

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Chocolate babka from “Artisan Breads Every Day”

If you want to have this for brunch, make the dough the day (morning) before you want to serve it, let it rise, then shape the loaf in the evening and put it in the refrigerator overnight to bake the next morning. Reinhart advises freezing the chocolate for the filling to make it easier to grind; I found the main thing was not to overload our mini food processor, but to grind the chocolate in batches.

Ingredients

Makes one loaf

• 2 Tbs instant yeast
• ¾ cup milk, warmed
• 6 Tbs/85 g melted butter
• 6 Tbs/85 g sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 egg yolks, plus one egg for the wash
• 3 1/3 cups/425 g flour (all-purpose or bread flour)
• 1½ tsp salt

For the filling:

• 1½ cups/255 g frozen semisweet chocolate (chips, chunks, or chopped)
• ¾ tsp cinnamon (more if you like)
• ¼ cup/57 g cold butter, cut into small pieces
  For the streusel topping:
• ¼ cup/57 g cold butter, cut into small pieces
• ½ cup/65 g flour
• pinch salt

Method
• Make the dough: dissolve the yeast in the warm milk and set it aside for about 5 minutes.
• Cream the butter and sugar. Add the 4 egg yolks one at a time, mixing to incorporate each one. Add the vanilla. Continue mixing until fluffy, about 2 minutes.
• Add the flour and salt, then the milk mixture. Keep mixing until you have a soft dough, then turn out the dough and knead it for 2-3 minutes until the dough is smooth and satiny. Form the dough into a ball and put it in an oiled bowl to rise for about 2½ hours. (I accidentally left mine much longer and it grew enormously but was fine.)
• While the dough rises, make the filling.
• Grind the chocolate to a powder, pulsing in a food processor or by chopping it as finely as you can. Add the cinnamon, then cut in the butter until you have a crumbly texture.
• Once the dough has risen, roll it out into a square about 15″x15″ (38×38 cm) on a floured surface; be careful to keep lifting the dough to ensure it doesn’t stick. Sprinkly the filling mixture evenly over the dough.
• Oil a 5×9″ (large) loaf pan.
• Roll up the dough square like a jelly roll, pinch the long seam closed and roll it to the underside of the log. Gently rock the log back and forth to lengthen it out to about 18-24″ (45-60 cm). Coil the roll up like a snail, the turn in on its side so it really looks like a snail – then smoosh it down so that it more or less fits inside the loaf pan. Cover loosely with plastic wrap.
• Let the dough rise at room temperature for 2-3 hours, until the babka fills the pan or has increased to about 1½ times its size. At this point you can either bake it or put it in the fridge overnight. Let it sit out at room temp for about 2 hours before baking if you do refrigerate.
• When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (180 C).
• Make the streusel – in a food processor or with a pastry blender (or even a fork) cut together the cold butter, flour, and salt until you have small crumbs. Make an egg wash by beating together the whole egg and a tablespoon of water, brush it over the top of the babka and sprinkle the streusel over that.
• Bake for 20-25 minutes, rotate the pan and bake for another 25 minutes or until the top is a dark brown. If you have a thermometer, the internal temperature will be around 185 F (85 C) when it’s done.
• Let the loaf cool before you try to slice it so the chocolate has time to set somewhat. Yum!

Many of our recipes end with the sentence: “Enjoy with a good rustic bread”. Bread is the staple food of Central Europe. We eat bread with everything. One of the challenges of moving was to find an everyday bread -  frankly, supermarket “sandwich” bread here is pretty bad. Sorry my friends, it is the truth. It is full of preservatives, different crazy sounding items and of course, sugar (that is true about everything. Everything tastes sweet here. It is like non-stop candy time). On other hand there are artisan breads. Well, those are amazing! The only problem is they are not priced for everyday eating. A good bread, which our family polishes off in 30 seconds, is $4. If you eat it once in a while, yes, it is the right price for something “special/artisan”. But if you eat it as Europeans do, yikes!
So we make our own. Katy is a great baker and she has been making all kinds of amazing breads. The only thing I missed was the rustic Hungarian potato bread. So in order to surprise her one night I made the “no knead bread“, added a potato and adjusted it accordingly. I was amazed with the results – exactly what I was hoping for! Now I’ll share this Hungarian recipe with you.

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Hungarian Potato Bread

Use bread flour. I used King Arthur bread flour. Russet potatoes are ideal for this recipe, because they are nice and floury. The potato has a few roles in the bread making: it will keep the bread moist, adds a gentle potato flavor to the crumb and a light bitterness to the crust.

Ingredients

Makes 2 small loaves or 1 big one.

• 3 cups bread flour
• 1 tsp instant yeast
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 large russet potato
• 1½ cups water

Method

• Peel and dice the potato, then rinse off the starch in a colander. Cook it until soft enough to pierce with a fork. Once soft strain the water and let it cool.
• In a large bowl mix flour yeast and salt. Mash the potato (or put it through a ricer) and add it to the flour mixture.
• Add 1 cup of water and then more if necessary. The dough should be on the sticky side. Put it in a clean bowl and cover with plastic wrap.
• Let it rise at room temperature for 12 hours. After 12 hours you should have a sticky goo, basically.
• Prepare a baking dish ( I used a small square stoneware baking dish) put it into the oven and preheat the oven to 500 F.
• Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and divide it in half; each blob will be a small loaf. Try to fold the dough over onto itself few times. Shape them and sprinkle with flour. Let the first one rest for 30 minutes.
• Dust the baking dish with flour and carefully put in the first loaf. Cover it with tinfoil and bake it for 25 minutes.
• After 25 minutes, uncover and bake another 35 minutes or until the bread gets dark and crusty. That is what we want!
• When the first loaf is ready you can bake the second one as above.
• Let it cool before you eat it.

I had a great day in Sonoma tasting some wine. I specifically went to try out the Cline cellars, since I was very excited about trying their wine; I had it for the first time on the way to California on the BA flight. I love the idea of grapes grown on 100 year-old vines. The yield is low but very mature and sophisticated. I am a big fan of Cline and their Ancient Wines line. With a little luck you can get these wines from under $10, which is my comfortable price limit for a bottle of wine. After the tasting at their cellars, I could not come home empty handed, and I decided to share this gem with my family. Since good wine must be accompanied by good food, I decided to make a Czech classic: roasted duck with red cabbage and Czech dumplings.

This Czech meal consist of three separate segments. You have to roast the duck, make the cabbage and the dumplings. It is a bit more labor intensive, but again remember that a good wine must be accompanied by a good meal.  I’ll post them as separate segments because the cabbage and the dumplings are often used with other meals and later I might refer to these recipes.

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Roasted Duck

For this recipe I used duck legs. For bigger parties or hungry individuals, you can count on 2 legs per person, for a lighter meal go with 1 duck leg per person. You can use other parts of the duck if you wish. The amount of apples and pears depends on the amount of duck you are going to roast. I use fruit in order to achieve light fruity tones and preventing the meat from drying out.

Ingredients

• firm apples, such as Braeburns
• pears, any variety
• red wine
• salt
• water
• duck legs
• caraway seeds

Method

• Slice the apple and pear and lay them directly on the roasting pan. Add few cups of red wine or water. The liquid should barely cover the fruit.
• Salt the duck legs on both side, place the legs on the fruit bed and sprinkle them generously with caraway seeds.
• Preheat the oven to 340F, cover the roasting pan with foil and bake until the meat is soft (2 -2.5 hours).
• When the meat can be easily pierced with a fork, remove the foil and broil until the skin is nice and crispy.

Red Cabbage

While the duck roasts you can do the red cabbage. This is a special cabbage used with few Czech recipes and you can use the leftovers in many good ways, as a side dish, in sandwiches.

Ingredients

• 1 medium red cabbage (1.5-2pounds)
• 1 big onion
• 1 bay leaf
• 3tbs vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 orange
• 3 cups of red wine
• 1tsp caraway seeds
• 1/2 tsp salt

Method

• Slice the cabbage into thin ribbons, removing the hard bits and nibbling on them while you salt the cabbage and let it rest for 30 minutes.
• Chop the onions.
• Heat the oil in large pot and add the onions together with the bay leaf. When onions become translucent, add the sugar and caramelize it.
• Add the caraway seeds and 10 seconds later add the red wine and the juice of one orange.
• Bring the mixture to boil and add the cabbage. Cook the cabbage on medium temperature until soft.
• When cabbage is soft add the vinegar and season with extra salt (1/2tsp maybe).

Steamed dumplings – knedliky

The Czech knedliky or “steamed bread” is a real Czech classic. It is served with variety of foods, especially with sauce. This is a simple knedliky recipe; unfortunatelly they are great only on the first day. After that they lose their freshness rapidly, so try to use them right away. You will need a steamer to make these (obviously), one with a flat bottom is the best.

Ingredients

• 1tsp sugar
• 1tsp yeast
• 3½ cups flour
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1 cup of milk
• ½ cup lukewarm water

Method

• Make a sponge: mix the lukewarm water, sugar and yeast and leave until bubbly, about ten minutes.
• Mix the flour with salt, add the sponge, eggs, and 2/3 cup of milk (if necessary keep adding more milk).
• Let it raise for 30 min, then punch it down.
• Let it raise again until doubled.
• Prepare the steamer: put a few inches of water in a large pot, and lightly oil the steamer basket. Bring the water to a boil.
• Shape little oval loafs and put them in the steamer basket. Steam them for 10-12 minutes until they are resilient and have a firm outer skin.
• Let them cool and cut them into slices just before you serve them.

Valerian got a funny Slovak cookbook a few years ago, Z Kuchyne starého Prešporka (from the kitchen of old Pressburg) by Peter Ševčovič. Pressburg is the German name for Bratislava, and the book is full of quirky cooking advice from the Bratislava of yesterday, collected from average and not-so-average people, since there are some recipes for living on the street, including how to cook pigeons and alley cats. I’ve skipped right over those to a recipe for a Slovak favorite, even today: vianočka, a kind of sweet braided bread.

The name vianočka means “Christmassy” but in fact this bread is an everyday item, something you pick up at the grocery store. Our kids are especially fond of an Austrian brand that we refer to as “squishy bread” because it’s packed full of artificial preservatives to keep it soft for for all eternity. When baking at home of course, we stick to natural ingredients!

The vianočka available these days is usually sweet and has a hint of lemon flavor. This old recipe from the book makes a rich, spicy loaf, delicious sliced and toasted or with jam.

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Vianočka- braided sweet bread, adapted from Z Kuchyne starého Prešporka

The dough had a strange texture after the first rise; if you leave it to rise overnight in the fridge, give it plenty of time to warm up the next day before you start to work with it for best results.

Ingredients

Makes one large loaf

• 1 star anise
• 4 whole cloves
• 1 vanilla bean
• zest of one lemon
• 5½ cups/550 grams flour
• 1 packet instant yeast
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 6 Tbs/80 grams sugar
• scant 1¼ cup/250 ml milk
• 4 oz/100 grams butter
• 2 egg yolks
• ½ cup/40 grams raisins

For topping

• One egg yolk beaten with about a teaspoon of water
• ¼ cup/20 grams slivered almonds (optional)

Method

• Using a mortar and pestle, pound the star anise, cloves, and vanilla pod to a fine powdery paste.
• In a small saucepan, heat the milk and butter together in a small pan, until just below boiling. Turn off the heat and add the spices. Set aside to cool.
• In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, yeast, salt, sugar, and lemon zest. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the milk mixture. Add the two egg yolks. Mix well until a soft dough forms; add the raisins and mix until incorporated.
• Turn the dough out onto a clean surface and knead until it is soft and shiny, about 5 minutes. Place the dough in a clean bowl, cover the bowl with plastic and allow the dough to rise until doubled, about 2 hours. You can also put it in the refrigerator overnight.
• Divide the dough in half. Divide one half into four equal-sized pieces. Divide the other half in half again, then divide one of those pieces into thirds, the other in two. You will have nine pieces of dough in three groups of descending size.
• Roll each piece of dough into a rope; all the ropes should be of equal length, but fatter or skinnier depending on the size of the piece.
• Make a four-strand braid with the four biggest pieces. Make a three-strand braid with the medium pieces, and place it on top of the first braid. Twist the two smallest ropes together, and stack them on top of the two other braids. You may want to stick a toothpick at each end to pin the braids all together (I didn’t and the top kind of slid over).
• Place the loaf on a greased baking sheet and cover with a cloth. Allow to rise in a warm place for 45 minutes.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F/190 C.
• Brush the loaf with the egg wash. Sprinkle the almonds over the top, if desired.
• Bake for 50-55 minutes. If the top starts to get too dark, cover the browned parts with a piece of foil.
• Allow to cool completely before slicing.

It’s Carnival season around these parts – before Lent the shops are decorated, kids’ costumes are on the racks, and doughnuts – sišky, fánk, or vdolky, depending on where you are – seem to be frying up everywhere you turn. I’m not complaining, or maybe I am, because it’s hard to get enough exercise in the winter to work off those deep-fried treats; anyway, a warm sugary puff is a pretty delicious way to beat the snowbound blues.

While I was researching recipes, I found most of them call for filling the doughnuts with jam after you fry them, using a piping tool. That was definitely more trouble than I’m willing to go to these days, but I remembered seeing a method for filling doughnuts before frying. It was an unlikely source – a Martha Stewart recipe for Hanukkah sufganiyot – but it was effective.

A couple of the doughnuts puffed up around the seal, but none of them leaked any of their fillings of jam or nougat (like Nutella). Success!

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Filled doughnuts

Ingredients

Makes about 12 doughnuts

• 1 cup/240 ml milk
• 2 oz/28 grams butter
• 3½ –3¾ cups/400-420 grams flour
• 1 packet instant yeast
• 1/3 cup/60 grams sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 eggs, separated
• ½ cup jam and/or nougat (or even frosting) for the filling
• Additional sugar to roll the doughnuts in

Method

• Heat the milk and butter together in a small pan until just below boiling. Set aside and allow to cool to lukewarm.
• In a large bowl, stir together 3½ cups flour, yeast, 1/3 cup sugar, and salt. When milk mixture has cooled, add it to the dry ingredients along with the egg yolks (reserving the whites for later). Mix to form a soft dough, then turn it out onto a floured surface and knead until the dough is smooth and still a bit sticky, adding more flour a tablespoon at a time if it’s very sticky. Place the dough in a clean bowl, cover, and leave in a warm place to rise for 2 hours or until doubled (or in the fridge overnight).
• When dough has doubled, turn it out onto a lightly-floured surface and roll out to about 1/8″ (0.5 cm) thin. Using a 2″/7 cm round cookie cutter, cut out circles; you can re-roll the scraps until you use up all the dough; you should get about 24 circles.
• Brush a circle with the reserved egg whites, then place about a teaspoon of filling in the center of the circle. Top with another of the dough circles, and pinch along the edge to seal. Repeat until all the circles have been used.
• Cover the doughnuts with a cloth and leave for 20-30 minutes or just until puffed.
• In the meantime, heat about 2 cups/0.5 liter of vegetable oil in a large pan. When a scrap of dough sizzles when you drop it in, the oil is hot enough.
• Fry the doughnuts in batches, being careful not to overcrowd them. Cook each doughnut for about 3 minutes or until golden brown, then turn and cook another 3 minutes.
• Place the cooked doughnuts on a layer of paper towels to cool for a minute or two; while they are still warm, roll them in granulated sugar and serve.

For some reason (cold weather?) we’ve got a lot of doughy recipes coming up, so I thought I’d say a few words about working with our tiny friend, yeast.

Until fairly recently I had very little experience working with raised dough. My mother made cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning, and sometimes I helped, but that was about it. It wasn’t until I jumped on the No-knead bread bandwagon a few years ago that I started to really enjoy baking. I had always felt that making bread from scratch was more trouble than it was worth; so messy, so prone to failure, no instant gratification as from muffins or even pancakes. But after a few experiments, I’ve found that raised dough is really very forgiving, fun, easy, and doesn’t even need to be messy!

First, I pretty much always use what is labeled here as “instant” yeast. In the US “fast-acting” seems to work the same way. It’s in the form of little dry granules and usually sold in individual packets (one packet works for about 4 cups or 500 g flour) You don’t need to let it dissolve in liquid, or wait for it to start acting (“proofing”), just stir in the liquid and off you go. You do still need to take care not to use liquid that is too hot, because the yeast is a little living beastie and heat kills it.

I sometimes use bread flour, but if I don’t have any, I use the same flour I use for everything else. I have noticed that I don’t need to use quite as much liquid as called for in most recipes, possibly because European flours tend to come from softer wheat than American ones (and I’m usually using American recipes). Or maybe it’s just my sloppy measurements!

It doesn’t take long to get a feel for proportions when baking. After baking a few loaves, you’ll soon find that you recognize when a dough is too soft or too dry for your purposes, and compensate by adding more flour or liquid. Always add a little at a time, to avoid upsetting the balance of flavors or ending up with a giant mass of dough! Don’t be afraid to doctor a recipe you like, or even make one up as you go. It’s rewarding to experiment with using different flours, liquids (beer!), and add-ins like nuts, or dried fruit, seeds, or onions.

And counterintuitively, the way I’ve gotten over my annoyance at having to wait for bread to rise, is to make the dough a day ahead. Most doughs are improved by slowing down the rising process in the fridge, so if you make the dough in the evening, you can bake it up the next day and enjoy!

Have you ever eaten a Chinese steamed pork bun? Imagine a sweet version, and you pretty much have buchty na páře (in Czech) or parené buchty (in Slovak). Instead of spicy meat, the fillings here are usually jam, sweetened poppy seeds, sweetened cheese (tvaroh), or chocolate. Buchty na páře just means steamed buchty, and buchty are, well, what they are – a kind of soft bread roll. (It’s pronounced something like book-tee, say the ch softly like in Loch Ness.) There are also baked buchty, which maybe we’ll cover another time. The dough itself is quite soft, and develops a rather tough, chewy skin while it steams.

That sounds a little unappetizing, doesn’t it? But it’s delicious, I promise! They’re usually served topped with vegetable oil, sugar, and cocoa powder that you stir together as you eat to make a chocolate syrup. Yes, initially I was kind of put off by the idea of pouring oil directly on my food and used melted butter, which for whatever reason seemed more palatable, but ten years in Central Europe and now I’m totally fine with dousing foodstuffs in oil. Of course there’s no reason why you couldn’t use ready-made chocolate syrup or any other topping, really, but at least once you should try saying “slather some oil on my buchty, baby”.

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Buchty na páře/parené buchty
Ingredients

• 1 cup/ 2.4 dl milk
• 3 cups/280 grams flour
• 1 sachet instant yeast (7 grams)
• 2 Tbs sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 egg

For the filling:

• jam, Nutella, or mini chocolate chips
• 2/3 cup poppyseeds ground together with 1/3 cup sugar

Method

• Heat the milk until it is almost boiling (“scald” it; this makes the yeast work better). Set it aside to cool. Meanwhile, mix together the flour, yeast, sugar and salt in a large bowl. When the milk has cooled to lukewarm, pour it into the dry ingredients and mix. Add the egg and mix well with a wooden spoon or your hands; the dough will be very soft, but it should come together. If it’s too wet to work with, add a little flour.
• Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave to rise in a warm place about an hour, or until doubled.
• Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave to rise in a warm place about an hour, or until doubled.
• In the meantime, prepare your steaming equipment. We have a flat-bottomed steaming insert for our big pasta pot, but any type of steamer works, including the kind that open like a flower. Brush some oil over the steamer, as the buchty can stick during cooking, and put a few inches of water in the bottom of a pot big enough to hold the steamer. I usually turn the water on while I’m making the buchty so they can cook straight away.
• When the dough has doubled in bulk, turn it out onto a (very) well-floured surface and roll out to about a quarter-inch (0.5 cm) thickness. Cut into squares that are about 4 inches (10 cm) square, 3 inches (8 cm) if you want smaller buchty. Larger buchty are more authentic but smaller ones may be more practical if you’re serving them as a dessert. Dollop about a teaspoon of filling into the center of a square, then gather up the edges and pinch to seal at the top, making a rounded sort of package. Continue adding filling and making the buchty until you’ve used all the squares.
• Now you’re ready to steam! Carefully place several buchty into the steamer; don’t crowd them, they’ll expand somewhat while cooking and can stick together. If you haven’t already, turn on the heat and once the water is boiling, put the steamer into the pot, cover and cook the buchty for 8-10 minutes and have developed a firm, slightly translucent skin. Using tongs or a couple of forks, gently lift the buchty out of the steamer and place them on plates to serve. You should cook all the buchty now, but you can freeze any that you don’t want to eat right away, and just steam them again (or even microwave them) to heat them through.

To serve

• Valerian’s family tops buchty with a spoonful of cocoa powder, a heaping spoonful of granulated sugar, and then pours oil over the top. As you eat, you swirl the toppings together, delicious!

If you visit Central Europe, you are almost certain to come across one of the few symbols from the socialist era that remains beloved today: the Little Mole, known variously as Krtek, Krtko, Kisvakond, Krecik or die Maulwurf. Our kids love to watch Little Mole cartoons on YouTube, and since the vast majority of them are short, sweet, and dialogue-free, they’re OK with me too. (There are a few peculiar exceptions that I generally don’t show the children.) The mole and his friends have fully embraced capitalism and now are emblazoned on t-shirts, toys, games and books, and are part of the wave of fashionable nostalgia that hit this region a few years ago.

While he is popular all around the Central Europe, the Little Mole shows his Czech origins from time to time. For his friend the frog’s birthday, he bakes koláče, a typically Czech pastry that can be filled with jam (as seen here), poppyseed filling, sweetened cheese or nuts.

Koláče aren’t reserved for festive occasions, they’re a substantial snack with tea or coffee, or an indulgent breakfast. They are also called frgale, which certainly sounds fancy; they can be dressed up by making patterns with different types of filling, which looks especially elegant if you make one big koláče.

Here’s a recipe and a couple of different filling variations, to be mixed and matched as you like.

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Koláče/Czech pastries

I’ve listed the fillings separately, since they’re useful for other types of pastry.

Ingredients

Makes 8 koláče

• 1 cup/20 ml milk
• 2 oz/50 grams butter
• 3½ cups/500 grams flour
• 1/3 cup + 1 Tbs/80 grams sugar
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 packet instant yeast
• 1 egg + 1 yolk

1 or more filling, in next recipe

Method

• Heat the milk and butter in a small pan until almost boiling. Remove from heat and allow to cool to lukewarm.
• In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, salt and yeast.
• Pour the milk mixture into the dry ingredients and stir together. Add one egg and mix until a sticky dough forms. Scrape down the sides of the bowl until it is fairly clean, cover it with plastic and leave the dough to rise for 2 hours at room temperature or overnight in the fridge.
• When the dough has doubled in bulk, divide it into 8 equal portions (each should weigh about 4 oz or 100 grams) and roll into balls. Cover them with a cloth and leave them to rest while you make the filling, see recipes below.
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F/190 C. Whisk the egg yolk with about a tsp of water to make an egg wash
• Gently flatten each ball to make a circle about 3½” across (9 cm)and form a well in the center. Spoon about 2 Tbs of filling into the well.
• Brush the exposed dough with the egg wash, and bake on a greased (or even better, parchment-paper lined) baking sheet for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown.

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Sweet fillings for pastry

Each of these recipes will fill at least 8 koláče. If you have filling left over, you could use it to make turnovers with frozen puff pastry dough, or fill any other type of pastry that suits your fancy.

Ingredients for poppyseed filling

• 1 cup + 2 Tbs/150 grams poppy seeds
• ¼ cup/ 60 ml milk
• ¼ cup/ 25 grams sugar

Method

• Grind the poppyseeds in a spice or coffee grinder until they form a paste.
• Mix with the milk and sugar in a small pan and cook over low heat, stirring frequently, for 2-3 minutes.

Ingredients for sweet cheese filling

• 9 oz/250 grams soft cheese, such as turó/tvaroh or ricotta
• ½ cup/ 50 grams sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• zest of one lemon
• 1 Tbs butter, softened
• 1 egg

Method

• Cream the butter and cheese together with the sugar. Beat in the egg, lemon zest, and vanilla.

Ingredients for walnut filling

• 7 oz/200 grams ground walnuts
• 1 cup + 2 Tbs/120 grams sugar
• 2/3 cup/150 ml milk
• zest of one lemon

Method

• Mix all ingredients together in a small pan and cook over low heat for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly.