Kolaches

In the Czech language, one (of these pastries) is called a Kolač: the little "v" (called a hacek) over the last letter makes it sound like our "ch"--Kolach.
The plural: "Kolaches" in English and "Kolaché" in Czech.
According to some sources, the word Kolač is related to a word meaning "pocket," describing the way the fillings are tucked into the middle of a sweet roll. A Czech dictionary defines Kolač as "the national sweet bread."

This morning I made kolaches filled with blackberry preserves from Remlinger Farms, which is located south of Carnation, WA. We discovered kolaches while in Wisconsin after seeing a recipe in a local newspaper. I searched the Internet for variations before discovering our current favorite version, one with sour cream in the dough. While you have to allow it to rise, there's no punching of the dough as in many versions and it makes a very tender, delicately flavored pastry. I had to do a 2-mile Walk with Leslie Sansone exercise tape as penance. Sigh. It was a perfect rainy morning breakfast.

We enjoy reading the morning paper from whatever city where we are at the moment and always look for recipes for foods that may be well known in that area or just something different. Recipes that turn out well are passed on to my sister-in-law, an excellent cook who also enjoys trying new recipes, while bad ones are simply trashed. I use Master Cook software on my computer to save my recipes which also allows you to forward them to friends in e-mails and share them on the Internet for downloading.

It's raining again this morning-Denny says he likes Washington rain as it means he can just stay inside and be lazy. No comment. Heh.