TM ended up with too many poppy seeds and gave us nearly half a kilo of them. I wasn't sure what to do with that many poppy seeds except make poppy seed filling. Originally I was thinking of making beigli (kind of like a poppy seed-filled yeasted jelly roll), but then I found this recipe for kolaches and couldn't resist giving it a try. They came out beautifully! I'm really pleased with them. Although I did accidentally make 4 times as much blueberry filling as I'd intended. Whoops!

Lemon, poppy seed, and blueberry filled kolaches.

Kolaches

From Taste of Home

Ingredients

• 2 c. milk, warmed to ~40°C
• 1/2 c. sugar, divided
• 4 tsp. active dry yeast
• 820g all-purpose flour, divided
• 1 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 4 large egg yolks
• 1/4 c. butter, softened
• 2 c. filling of choice
• 1 large egg white

Directions

1. Stir 1 Tbsp. of the sugar into the warm milk.
2. Dissolve yeast in milk and set aside for ~10 minutes.
3. Combine ~300g of the flour with the salt and remaining sugar.
4. Mix in the egg yolks, butter, and yeast-milk mixture.
5. Once thoroughly combined, gradually mix in remaining flour¹.
6. Knead for 6-8 minutes².
7. Shape dough into a ball and place smooth side down in a large greased bowl. Flip it greased side up. Cover the bowl and set it to rise. Rise is finished when dough no longer returns wet fingerprint. This took ~1 hour for me.
8. Knock dough back, shape into a ball, and return to covered bowl to rise again. Second rise took ~45 minutes for me.
9. Knock the dough back again. Unless you have a very large surface to work with and will be able to bake all the kolaches at once, divide the dough into two equal portions. Shape one into a ball, return it to its covered bowl, and place in the fridge to slow it down a bit while you shape and bake the others.
10. Roll the remaining dough out to a thickness of 12 or 13mm.
11. Use a 5cm round cutter³ to cut out circles of dough and place them on a greased pan. Cover and set to rise for 20-30 minutes. (Exact time will vary depending on the temperature of the room.)
12. Once rounds are fully risen, press down firmly in the centre making a depression ~2.5cm across.
13. Fill depression with filling.
14. Brush tops of dough with egg white.
15. Bake at 180°C (350°F) for 10-15 minutes.
16. Place kolaches on wire rack to cool.
17. Remove the remaining dough from the fridge and roll it out and cut it as with previous portion. Cover, allow to rise, fill, glaze, and bake as before.
18. Collect any scraps of dough, knead them together and roll them out to make the last batch of kolaches.

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¹ The original recipe calls for using this mixing procedure. They also give a range for the flour (~800-875g) and mixing in as much of the remaining flour as needed to make a "stiff dough". My instincts for an enriched dough like this was that it should be a very soft dough. I used 820g of flour. This initially made a very soft sticky dough. I resisted the urge to add more flour, and by the time it was kneaded, it had come together into a beautifully silky and elastic delight. Recipes that give ranges of flour like that and ask you to add it before kneading make me nervous. Knead it at least partway first, then adjust with more flour our water as needed. And, with very few exceptions (bagels and pretzels being notable ones), it's usually better to err toward too wet over too dry.
Given how I prefer to mix my dough and how this recipe came out, I'd be inclined to skip dividing the flour in the future. Just mix the sugar and salt into the full measure of flour, make a well in the centre, mix it to a batter consistency, and then gradually incorporate the rest of the flour into the liquids working from the centre outward. Knead it for a few minutes, evaluate whether it needs to be adjusted, finish kneading and off you go! ^Back
2 Normally bread would need to be kneaded for much longer, but the all-purpose flour has a lower gluten content than hard/strong/bread flour. I found 8 minutes seemed just about right for my dough. ^Back
3 I tried a variety of sizes (as you may be able to tell from the photo). After experimenting with sizes ranging from 5cm to ~7.5cm in diameter, I decided that I liked the smallest ones the best. ^Back