Klobásníky not Kolaches

This is the second essay I am sharing from ATK’s When Southern Women Cook today—find the first one here—all about the garlicky sausage-filled, buttery Texas-Czech pastry klobásníky, and why they are not kolaches, another (excellent, buttery) Texas-Czech pastry.

Dawn is a fourth-generation Texas Czech and is at work on the cookbook Kolach Culture: Cooking in Texas Czech Kitchens, for the University of Texas Press, about which I hope to chat with her for Wordloaf someday.

—Andrew

Klobásníky not Kolaches

Driving east from my home in Austin to my birthplace of Houston along US Route 77 and Interstate 10, there are almost as many ­billboards advertising kolaches and klobásníky as there are Texas bluebonnets blooming in the spring. However, in the stretches between those billboards and in the surrounding counties are small towns where Texas Czechs, including my family, are home baking a tastier, more traditional version of the pastries.

Whether meat market barbecue, hoppy beer, smoked sausages, or kolaches, foods of Texas’s Czech community have been of particular interest in food media. But it is the misunderstood pastry known as a klobásník in Czech (usually misnamed a sausage kolache by ­commercial bakeries) that may be the current darling.

Certainly thousands of klobásníky (the plural of klobásník) are sold daily across Texas and increasingly across the United States at mom-and-pop shops and national (but Texas-based) chains such as the Kolache Factory and Shipley Do-Nuts. Hungry commuters buy them to eat in the car and they’re a familiar sight at office meetings, Saturday morning sports practices, and Sunday morning church gatherings. In Austin, there are at least two dozen bakeries serving them. Some are “artisanal” bakeries and some are chain establishments, but their offerings, with fillings such as barbecued brisket or sausage-egg-cheese, cannot be called traditional.

The now-closed Village Bakery, which opened in 1952 in the overwhelmingly Czech town of West, Texas, claimed to have invented the klobásník and even trademarked the name, but there are mentions in Czech-language newspapers of the pastry being made by home cooks that predate the bakery by decades. My great-aunts will tell you they remember taking klobásníky out to the fields to eat on breaks from picking cotton on their family farms well before the bakery opened.

A traditional klobásník, like those portable lunches made by my great-grandmother 80 years ago, wraps soft, yeasty, milk-and-butter-enriched double-risen dough around smoky, garlicky homemade or Texas Czech meat market–made sausage and is liberally brushed with butter during the baking process.

The dough absorbs the rich flavor of the butter from the outside and the smoky aroma and fatty juiciness of the sausage from the inside in a way that distinguishes the finished product from mass­produced doughnut shop “sausage kolaches.” Smoked and fresh sausages are a hallmark of Czech cuisine. Immigrants to Texas brought recipes for a variety of sausages, and their descendants still make them, using every part of a pig in different combinations.

Some versions include barley or rice; some use head meat or offal such as heart and liver. But the sausage (“klobase” in Czech) inextricably associated with klobásníky is the most basic: generally a 1-pound, horseshoe-shaped link of coarsely ground pork meat (or pork and beef) flavored simply with salt, garlic, pepper, and sometimes paprika.

A meticulous cook “peels” the casing off the sausage before slicing it into pieces for klobásníky. And Texas cooks do not skimp on butter, buttering the pan, buttering the rising dough balls, and also buttering the finished pastries when they come out of the oven.

Most often, Texas Czechs would eat klobásníky at a family or community gathering, either baking the pastries themselves or picking up several dozen at a local bakery for an extended family Christmas party, funeral reception, or heritage group meeting.

For such events, klobásníky might be one offering in a lunch spread, served alongside foods such as chicken soup with homemade, fine-cut noodles; pimento cheese and chicken salad sandwiches; pickles; and sliced summer sausage.

Typical recipes in community cookbooks make a batch of no less than six dozen klobásníky, ensuring plenty for historically large Texas Czech families. As successive generations in the community have fewer children, smaller families might make one pan of klobásníky on the weekend, wrap each klobásník individually in freezer paper or plastic wrap, and store them in a zipper-lock bag in the freezer for their kids to grab and microwave for breakfast.

This recipe makes one dozen but can easily be multiplied for parties or holidays.

by Dawn Orsak, fourth-generation Texas Czech and author of the forthcoming cookbook Kolach Culture: Cooking in Texas Czech Kitchens.

Klobásníky

(Courtesy of Dawn Orsak and America's Test Kitchen. All rights reserved.)

Makes 12 rolls


Total Time: 1½ hours, plus 1½ to 2¼ hours rising

These are Dawn Orsak’s real-deal klobásníky (Texas Czech–style sausage rolls), not to be confused with a savory kolache. One envelope of instant yeast is 2-¼ teaspoons. You can find Prasek’s brand Smoked Pork and Beef Sausage at H-E-B grocery stores in Texas or online at Praseks.com. If you can’t find Prasek’s sausage, you can substitute a 14- or 16-ounce ring link of kielbasa. Removing the casing in step 3 will work best with chilled sausage (though you needn’t remove the casing if you’re using kielbasa).

½ cup whole milk

4 tablespoons salted butter, softened and cut into 4 pieces, plus 2 tablespoons melted, divided

1 large egg plus 1 large yolk

2 tablespoons sugar

2-¼ teaspoons instant or rapid-rise yeast

½ teaspoon table salt

2-¼ cups (11-¼ ounces) all-purpose flour

1 (1-pound) ring link Prasek’s Smoked Pork and Beef Sausage, chilled

1. Using stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment, mix milk, softened butter, egg and yolk, sugar, yeast, and salt on medium speed until thoroughly combined, about 1 minute (some small lumps of butter will remain). Fit stand mixer with dough hook. Add flour and mix on low speed until no dry flour remains, about 2 minutes, scraping down bowl as needed. Increase speed to medium and knead until dough is smooth and elastic and clears sides of bowl but sticks to bottom, about 3 minutes.
2. Transfer dough to lightly greased counter and knead by hand to form smooth, round ball, about 30 seconds. Place dough seam side down in lightly greased large bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and let rise until doubled in size, 1 to 1-½ hours.
3. Meanwhile, cut sausage into 2 equal lengths. Cut each length into 3 equal pieces, each about 3 inches long. Slice each piece in half lengthwise to form 12 equal pieces. Using paring knife, peel casing from sausage pieces; discard casing and set sausage aside.
4. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 375 degrees. Grease 13 by 9-inch baking pan with 2 teaspoons melted butter. Transfer dough to lightly greased counter, divide into 12 equal pieces (about 1-⅔ ounces each), and cover loosely with plastic. Working with 1 piece of dough at a time (keep remaining pieces covered), form dough into rough ball. Place ball seam side down on counter, then loosely cup dough with your palm and roll in circles against counter to form smooth, tight ball. Cover with plastic.
5. Working with 1 dough ball at a time, place ball seam side up on counter. Using your fingertips, press ball into 4 by 5-inch rectangle. Place 1 piece of sausage cut side up in center of dough, with long side of sausage parallel to long side of rectangle. Bring edges of dough up and around sausage and pinch seams to seal, completely encasing sausage. Arrange shaped klobásníky seam side down in 3 rows of four in prepared pan. Brush klobásníky with 2 teaspoons melted butter, cover with plastic, and let rise again until puffy, 30 to 45 minutes.
6. Bake until tops of klobásníky are light golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes, rotating pan halfway through baking. Brush with remaining 2 teaspoons melted butter and let cool for 10 minutes. Serve warm.

To Make Ahead Klobásníky can be stored in airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days or frozen. To freeze, wrap individual klobásníkyin plastic wrap and freeze in zipper-lock bag for up to 3 months; thaw before serving or reheating. To reheat, wrap individual klobásníky in paper towels and microwave for about 30 seconds.

Excerpted from When Southern Women Cook, by America’s Test Kitchen, Toni-Tipton Martin, and Morgan Bolling. Shared with permission from America’s Test Kitchen, all rights reserved.