If you live in Prague, Oklahoma, or Montgomery, Minnesota, chances are you are very familiar with pastries called kolacky or kolache. These two towns are among numerous in this country that lay claim to fame for their versions of this Central European pastry--a sweet yeast dough that holds or encloses a fruit, poppyseed, or other sweet filling. (There are also savory versions filled with cheese or meat.) The shapes of kolacky seem to vary considerably, possibly depending on the country of origin (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia).When I stumbled across a kitchen tool called a kolacky cutter ($7 from Amazon), I was curious to see how it worked. Not so easy.
None of the U.S. kolache festivals seem to produce anything that look like they could have used this cutter. I finally resorted to searching Czech websites, which provided photographs but no help for how to make koláče (my Czech and Slovak are both very rusty these days).
The picture at left gives a little hint to how the cutter must be used.In any case, if you use this cutter to cut out regular sugar cookie dough and put a spot of jam in the center, you could probably find some creative way to fold in those windmill-ish arms to make something cool looking.
Hey Kate,
ReplyDeleteHave you seen the little lady spoons I have for salt? Pretty cute-you'll have to check them out.