Czech & Slovak · Bread
Moravské Koláče
- Intermediate
- 45 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, a silken, spoon-slow texture, with a clean, bright snap.
Ingredients
- 500 g plain flour
- 250 ml whole milk at 35C (95F)
- 20 g fresh yeast, or 7 g dried
- 80 g caster sugar
- 2 egg yolks
- 100 g butter, soft
- 6 g fine salt
- zest of 1 lemon
- 300 g tvaroh or dry curd cheese, drained
- 1 egg yolk, for the filling
- 50 g caster sugar, for the filling
- 50 g raisins
- 200 g povidla, thick plum butter
- 60 g plain flour, for the crumb
- 40 g caster sugar, for the crumb
- 40 g cold butter, for the crumb
- 50 g butter, melted, to finish
Equipment
Sheet pan · Grater / zester
The skills inside
Proofing: the rise before the ovenRubbing fat into flourEgg wash & the baker’s shineThe wobble & the skewer: testing a bake
The words inside
Proofing, Oven Spring & the Crumb
Allergen screen
Found: gluten · dairy · egg
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Whisk the yeast, a spoon of sugar and a spoon of flour into the warm milk and leave it until the surface caps and cracks.
- Knead in the flour, yolks, sugar, salt and zest, working the soft butter in last, until the dough is satin and slow to spring back from a finger.
- Prove until doubled, divide into 60 g balls, flatten each one and prove again on the tray until they feel like an earlobe.
- Only now press a wide well into each with the floured base of a glass, leaving a 1 cm rim, and fill with the tvaroh beaten with its yolk, sugar and raisins, then drop a spot of povidla in the centre.
- Rub the crumb ingredients to coarse sand, scatter it over, and bake at 190C (375F) until the rims are gold and the curd has just set with no wobble, about fifteen minutes.
- Brush with melted butter the moment they come out of the oven.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Egg wash & the baker’s shine 34 recipes
- Applied thin and even over every surface that will show, with no bare patches and no ridges or brush lines standing in it.
- Nothing pooled: no wash run down into the seams, collected in the corners, or welded to the tray around the base.
- It has not glued shut what needs to move: layers, scores, and cut edges are still free to open in the heat.
- Baked, the finish is even and glossy across the whole piece and deep gold rather than patchy, with no darker bands where the wash sat heavy.
- The shine is on the outside only: nothing inside the piece tastes of egg.
Where it goes wrong The wash went on heavy and ran into the scores and down to the tray, so the piece baked sealed along its seams, browned unevenly, and carries dark rubbery ridges where the egg collected.
Rubbing fat into flour 47 recipes
- The fat is cold when it starts and still firm when the rubbing stops, and the bowl has not warmed under the hands.
- Stopped early, while it still looks like coarse crumbs with pieces of fat visible in it, not worked on to a smooth even sand, which means the pieces have gone.
- Nothing is greasy or glossy and nothing has smeared into a paste against the side of the bowl.
- Liquid added last and only enough to bring it together: pressed, it just holds, with no wet patch and nothing sticking to the hand.
- Rested cold before it is rolled or shaped, so the gluten relaxes and the fat firms again after being handled.
Where it goes wrong The fat was too warm, or it was rubbed until the mixture looked uniform. Once the fat has melted into the flour there are no solid pieces left to steam apart in the oven, so the bake is sandy or tough instead of flaky, and nothing done later puts those layers back.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Grüner Veltliner
- Also Right
- Vermentino or dry Chenin
- From the Taps
- Saison
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling water with citrus & herbs
The vegetable whisperers: peppery, high-acid whites that flatter greens, roots, and grains without bullying them.
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