Going to the farmer's market every Saturday was one of our favorite things to do in Bloomington. While we certainly enjoyed the produce on offer, we really went for the breakfast options. Whether that was crepes and croques at Le Petit Café, Brown County Coffee, or Aahaa Chai, there was always something tasty to be found. Our all-time favorite, though, was Sweet Claire Bakery, which always had a line around the corner. It is here we were introduced to kolaches: sweet buns with lots of different filling options. More than two years after we left town, we have greatly missed them... until now. Ariel got in touch with the proprietor and got the dough recipe, and I went to work dreaming up some fillings. We were blown away with how good the results were, and I'm excited to share them.
Kolaches originated in Central Europe, like so many other delicious things, made their way to the United States with the immigrants who loved them. Czech communities have made them especially popular in Texas. From what I can tell, the original Czech version has strictly sweet fillings, but creative American cooks have moved them in a savory direction. We came up with two fillings, loosely inspired by what we remembered from the kolaches we had in Bloomington. Both types were delicious.
The first is a braised chicken I've been calling "adobo chicken," not to be confused with the grilled version I posted last summer. This was fairly similar to my pulled pork recipe, but uses chicken thighs and tomatoes. It's a little spicy on its own, but this balances out inside the bun with. The filling is rounded out with half a hard-boiled egg. The chicken turned out very well and would also be great in a taco. Because it is a saucy filling, there were some structural problems on the bottoms, so it's important to make sure they are thick enough to hold up. It wasn't too bad, but it's something to watch out for. The second emulates a classic breakfast sandwich with sausage, egg, and cheese. The main question here was how to do the eggs. I decided to make French-style rolled omelettes and put half an omelette in each kolache. This worked out very well because they hold up well while not drying out. These kolaches turned out great. The only adjustment we would make is adding a little more cheese.
The dough recipe is reproduced from what we received from Sweet Claire. The original recipe was given in baker's percentages, with this set to make 12 kolaches. As such, the amounts are all in grams - a little unusual for this blog. A good scale is a great addition to any kitchen. We made 6 of each type of kolache. The chicken recipe makes enough for all 12 buns, so I saved half of it for later. All in all, the results were simply fantastic, and we're already looking forward to making them again and trying some different fillings.
