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Sausage & Pepper Kolaches

by:
January 19, 2024
5
1 Ratings
Photo by Food52
  • Prep time 2 hours 15 minutes
  • Cook time 45 minutes
  • makes 10 kolaches or klobásník
Author Notes

Kolache are a delicious stuffed or topped bread made with a soft, slightly sweet yeast-raised dough. The pastry is Czech in origin, and different versions have long-held popularity in certain areas of the United States. For example, in Texas, there are delicious dough wrapped sausages—often called klobásník or sausage rolls. Kolache fillings can also be sweet, but I personally love celebrating them as a savory pastry. These sausage and peppers kolache are so delicious, with a bottom layer of pickly peppers and onions, and large bites of the juicy sausage of your choice.

Note: If you want to take a Texan cue and shape this same recipe as a more traditional sausage klobásník (or roll) shape, roll or press out each piece of dough into a rectangle about 3x4-inches. Scoop the pepper mixture in a line down the center of the dough, leaving ½ inch uncovered on each end. Place a whole cooked sausage on top, then wrap the remaining dough around the sausage and pinch well to seal. Egg wash, and top with cheese as directed for the kolache. Bake for 20 to 24 minutes. Or, try your hand at a simple sweet kolache instead! Skip the sausage and pepper filling, and shape the kolache dough as specified in steps 8 to 9. Spoon 2 tablespoons of lemon curd into the center. Make a batch of streusel streusel. After egg washing the pastries, sprinkle a generous handful on top of each kolache. Egg wash and bake for 22 to 25 minutes. —Erin Jeanne McDowell

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Ingredients
  • For the dough:
  • 3/4 cup (175 grams) whole milk
  • 4 cups (480 grams) all-purpose flour
  • 1/3 cup (67 grams) granulated sugar
  • 2 tablespoons (14 grams) dry milk powder
  • 1 tablespoon (10 grams) instant dry yeast
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons (6 grams) fine sea salt
  • 2 large (113 grams) eggs, at room temperature
  • 1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
  • For filling & finishing:
  • 2 tablespoons (30 grams) extra-virgin olive oil
  • 1 tablespoon (14 grams) unsalted butter
  • 1 medium (215 grams) sweet onion, diced
  • 1 medium (about 250 grams) green bell pepper, diced
  • 1 medium (about 250 grams) red bell pepper, diced
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
  • 5 cloves garlic, minced (about 25 grams)
  • 1/3 cup (75 grams) apple cider vinegar
  • 10 Italian sausages, fully cooked
  • Egg wash: 1 large (56 gram) egg + 1 tablespoon (15 gram) water + pinch of kosher salt
  • 1 1/4 cups (125 grams), packed, sharp cheddar cheese
Directions
  1. In a medium saucepan, heat the milk over medium-low heat until it reaches about 110°F/45°C. Remove from the heat.
  2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, mix the flour, sugar, dry milk, yeast, and salt on low speed to combine. Add the warm milk, eggs, and butter and mix for 4 minutes. Raise the speed to medium and mix until the dough is smooth, about 2 minutes.
  3. Transfer the dough to a lightly greased large bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise until visibly puffy, 1 hour to 1 hour and 15 minutes.
  4. In a large sauté pan, heat the olive oil and butter over medium heat until the butter is fully melted. Add the onion and peppers, and season with salt and pepper.
  5. Sauté until the onions and peppers are very soft, about 15 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté until fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes more. Add the vinegar and bring to a simmer. Simmer until the vinegar reduces and the mixture appears somewhat jammy, 2 to 3 minutes more. Cool to room temperature.
  6. Slice each sausage into about 6 thick pieces (or, if you want to shape as a whole sausage klobásník, see headnote). Make the egg wash by whisking the egg, water, and a pinch of salt together to combine. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
  7. When the dough has risen, shape the kolaches: Evenly divide the dough into 10 pieces (about 95 grams each). Gently round each piece of dough, and place on a lightly floured work surface. Cover with a clean kitchen towel, and let rest for 15 minutes.
  8. Working with one piece of dough at a time, use your fingers to firmly press each round down. Start pressing more firmly in the center to help make that portion of the dough thinner than the outer edges. Continue to press until the dough widens to a round about 4 inches/10 cm across. Transfer the rounds to the prepared baking sheets.
  9. Lightly spray the bottom of a ramekin (or ½ cup measure) with nonstick cooking spray, and press it into the center of each round to further deepen the center indentation. Cover the baking sheets with greased plastic wrap and let rise for 30 minutes, then press again with the ramekin or measuring cup.
  10. Heat the oven to 350°F/175°C with the oven racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. Egg wash the outer edge of the dough, then spoon a heaping 2 tablespoons of the pepper mixture into the center. Arrange the sausage slices, slightly overlapping, over the center of the peppers in an even layer. Repeat until all the pastries are egg washed and filled.
  11. Divide the cheese evenly between the kolaches, piling on top of the sausage. Transfer the pans to the oven, and bake until the cheese is melted and the pastries are golden brown, 22 to 25 minutes. Cool at least 10 minutes before serving warm, or serve at room temperature.
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I always have three kinds of hot sauce in my purse. I have a soft spot for making people their favorite dessert, especially if it's wrapped in a pastry crust. My newest cookbook, Savory Baking, came out in Fall of 2022 - is full of recipes to translate a love of baking into recipes for breakfast, dinner, and everything in between!

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1 Review

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W J. May 16, 2024
Erin McDowell doesn't disappoint--ever!

A fan of kolaches, I was looking for a Rx for something more savory, when this Rx came to my attention. I had all the ingredients ready at hand, so it was a simple matter to dump all the pastry ingredients into my Ankarsrum and Voila, ten minutes later, I had a silky smooth kolache dough. (An Ankarsrum is both efficient and simple to use; I just weigh all ingredients into the 3.9L bowl, and turn it on. Couldn't be simpler or quicker compared to doing it with a KitchenAid or by hand.) This gave me 952g of finished dough after the first rise in covered Ankarsrum bowl, which I formed into 10-95g dough balls.

But I'm getting ahead of myself, for I started by gently braising 5 Premo Hot Italian Sausages (524g) in 125g of homemade chicken stock to an internal sausage temp of 185°F or fully cooked. I removed the sausages to cool to ambient. Though most of the stock had boiled off I added another 60g, and along with the grease, water, and juices that came from the sausages to deglazed the saute pan. I did not add any EVOO or butter. It wasn't needed. This has a material affect on the final calories as the EVOO and butter called for in the recipe would have added ~36 cals to each finished kolache.

I cooked 328g of diced yellow onion until golden over moderate heat in the same pan and with the extra stock that was added helping to reduce the onion. I added 27g of garlic using a press, cooked for a few minutes and then added 506g of diced green, red and yellow bell peppers. This mixture was cooked over moderate to low heat for about 30-35 mins until the "jammy" consistency was achieved. I added 5g salt and 1g black pepper. At that point, I had 542g of cooked pepper, onions and garlic.

I am not a big fan of vinegar in my SP&O dishes, so instead of the 75g called for in Erin's Rx, I only used about half that amount or 36g of apple cider vinegar. I felt that the acid would help lift the flavors as it usually does, without tasting "pickled."

I peeled the membrane casing from the cooled, cooked sausages (395g) to give 347g of peeled, cooked sausages. I sliced the links on a slight diagonal.

An empty, shallow plastic container (Mezete hummus) that was exactly 10 cm (4"), made short work of the apportioned 95g kolache dough balls to form kolache shells. It was a simple matter to place one dough ball into the container and squash the middle with a greased, 1/2 cup, measuring cup. This formed an almost perfect kolache shell in just a few seconds each.

After the second rise, and reforming the indentation in the shells, I added ~54g of the pepper, onion, garlic mix, then ~35g of cooked, sliced Italian sausage to each shell. I egg washed the filled shells at this point and topped each one with 15g of hand shredded, Dubliner extra sharp cheddar cheese.

I baked the kolaches to an internal temperature of 200°F as measured with a Thermoprobe Instant Read thermometer (a total of 22 mins at 350°F, turning them and exchanging the top and bottom trays at the 11 minute mark). Finished, they were a beautiful golden brown. I have pictures of most the major steps in this, but, alas, I have no way to share them on this forum.

The finished Kolaches weigh around 182g (6.4oz) each, which from my careful data records and calculations (retired Ph.D. organic chemist) yield a value of 2.94 cals/g, which in turn gives a calorie value of ~536 cals each.

All in all, this isn't an especially high value for such a treat. Diet food it isn't, but a single kolache makes a light meal..

It is hard to overpraise these beauties as they turned out savory and delicious. I gave some away, ate some, and have frozen the rest.

Thank you, Ms. McDowell for yet another winner!