OT: Stress baking... Kolache

caliking

thetrim said:

How is the little one doing being on social isolation from his model GFs?

caliprince is taking it in stride, but you can tell he misses his hunnies.

And +1 re: buying fresh corn out of the back of a pickup ala shady parking lot corn deals. I miss the the fresh sweet corn from our time in IA. 

caliking

Foghorn said:

1). There’s an annual Czech festival in LaGrange, not too far from Houston and it’s pretty fun. 

2). @caliking, @20stone, and @The Cen-Tex Smoker, I blame you guys for the fact that my 25 y/o is baking stuff on her spring break. Like a lemon blackberry tart that she made from scratch. She sure didn’t get it from me. 

That looks fantastic!

You should have her visit/stay more often. Maybe she could teach you how to cook?

caliking

SaltySam said:

My grandma Mabel lived in northeast Nebraska (Wayne) and was the kolache master.  Her specialties were cherry, lemon, apricot and prune.  Though the prune ones went last, they all went quick.  It’s a two hour drive from Wayne to my hometown and our family of five housed two dozen before we made it home.  Ha!  

Grandma’s recipe was definitely by feel.  She had measurements like “handful” and “half handful”.  Very difficult to replicate.  They will always be one of my favorite foods, and a wonderful memory of a wonderful grandma.

Your post made me nostalgic.  Thanks Cali!

It makes me smile that these brought back fond memories of your grandma. I'm getting closer to baking by feel, but I've got a ways to go. 

caliking

@texaswig I've been making jams/marmalades for the past year or so. Good stuff, especially since I have access to good fruit (grapefruit, lemons). Peaches were good last year, so I made some good peach bourbon habanero jam. Not too hard to make, and the payoff easily exceeds the effort put in.

Legume

Those look fantastic. I miss Kolaches, I’d pay hand sanitizer prices right now for a sausage and jalapeño kolache.

dbCooper

caliking said:

Carolina Q said:

Never knew the name of those. My Mom used make them, filled with mince meat. Every Christmas. Ex makes 'em filled with apricot jam. Brother makes 'em filled with apricot or blackberry jam. All delicious! I tried 'em a couple of times and gave up! Yours look great... maybe I'll try again.

They weren't too hard to make. The recipe called for a bit more yeast than was necessary IMO, so had to punch down the dough a couple of times and wait longer. This dough needs to be somewhat on the overproofed side to work best. 

  Did your recipe include lard?  If not, you may want to give that a try in the future. 

caliking

dbCooper said:

caliking said:

Carolina Q said:

Never knew the name of those. My Mom used make them, filled with mince meat. Every Christmas. Ex makes 'em filled with apricot jam. Brother makes 'em filled with apricot or blackberry jam. All delicious! I tried 'em a couple of times and gave up! Yours look great... maybe I'll try again.

They weren't too hard to make. The recipe called for a bit more yeast than was necessary IMO, so had to punch down the dough a couple of times and wait longer. This dough needs to be somewhat on the overproofed side to work best. 

  Did your recipe include lard?  If not, you may want to give that a try in the future. 

oh I'm well aware of the glory of lard in baked goods. I still have some from our piggy husbandry adventure, and will use some in the future. This was my first attempt, so I imagine they will only get better. 

Foghorn

caliking said:

Foghorn said:

1). There’s an annual Czech festival in LaGrange, not too far from Houston and it’s pretty fun. 

2). @caliking, @20stone, and @The Cen-Tex Smoker, I blame you guys for the fact that my 25 y/o is baking stuff on her spring break. Like a lemon blackberry tart that she made from scratch. She sure didn’t get it from me. 

That looks fantastic!

You should have her visit/stay more often. Maybe she could teach you how to cook?

Yeah.  She's move home for the foreseeable future.  This past week was her spring break of her last year of law school.  And her classes have moved online so there's no pressing region for her to go back to Houston.  The way things went this past week suggests that she may struggle in finding time to devote appropriate time to her studies - especially as she preps for the Bar exam (which may or may not be given in July as scheduled as the testing centers are currently closed).

Maybe having her teach me to cook is the best possible use of the time.  

caliking

@Foghorn its a real bummer that fallout of this sutuation includes final year students in high school/college/graduate programs, etc. Qualifying/certifying exams in many fields have been impacted, which will affect the workforce in so many fields in the time to come. 

Foghorn

Yep.  Her school hasn't cancelled its mid-May graduation yet - but our school has.  

Online Match Day just wasn't the same, but at least things proceeded.

northGAcock

Legume said:

I’d pay hand sanitizer prices right now for a sausage and jalapeño kolache.

Everyone laughed at me when I bought that Yeti load out box a while back. Found a large bottle of hand sanitizer in it while looking for something else today. Now who is laughing?

Legume

northGAcock said:

Legume said:

I’d pay hand sanitizer prices right now for a sausage and jalapeño kolache.

Everyone laughed at me when I bought that Yeti load out box a while back. Found a large bottle of hand sanitizer in it while looking for something else today. Now who is laughing?

Just to be clear, you didn’t find any sausage and jalapeño kolaches in it?