My Mom's Kolaches

 

My Mom's dedication to making the perfect kolache is an act of love and the art of baking—a love my Mom and I share.
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As long as I can remember, my Mom has been in the kitchen in the small Texas town I grew up in, making traditional Czech kolaches. She put her joy of baking into each sweet yeast dough ball with a hollowed-out center filled with fresh fruit or cream cheese.
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As she perfected her recipe with our family as official taste testers, she began sharing these sweet delights with our small-town community. Our neighbors started asking for my Mom's kolaches, and word about my Mom's fresh traditional kolaches spread. She was encouraged to enter her kolaches in baking contests, the largest of which was the Czech festival in Texas, Westfest. The outcome? Every year my Mom entered, she won a trophy and was awarded the Grand Champion Prize three times! Recently, I entered her award-winning cream cheese kolache in the Caldwell Kolache Festival Kolace contest. In 2023 it won first prize in the Cream cheese category and in 2024 my Raspberry Cream Cheese kolaches won Reserve Grand Champion in the State Non-Professional division.

So, in my family's tradition with Mom's recipe, I share my love of baking and the perfect kolache with my community. I have been studying, adjusting, and testing Mom's recipe (now Mom-approved) for over two years, and it's time to share the goodness!  - Anthony Lenart