20 years ago, when I moved to Texas, I was introduced to a pastry called Kolaches. These became a staple for any breakfast get together. And when I moved away from Texas it because impossible to find these specialties.
For those of you that are not familiar with what a kolache is, let me give you a quick history lesson. Back on the early 1800s, Texas welcomed settlers from Central Europe. As they settle the vast land, they introduced a pastry from their homeland called the kolache. This pastry started off as a sweet fruit filling. It later evolved to include savory fillings. There is everything from egg filled for breakfast to pizza filled for a fun afternoon snack.
Since I was visiting Texas for a few days, I decided to indulge on kolaches since it is next to impossible to find outside of the state. I thought it would be fun to write about the different places I went in one big blog post.
My first stop was at Shipley Do-Nuts. While their main focus is donuts, they do offer a few kolaches choices. I went for the ham and cheese. This is perfect for lunch time. They use slices of ham and American cheese. That is then placed inside of the bun. It is baked up till the bread is fluffy and the ham and cheese is hot. When I bit in the cheese was nice and melted. There was a nice saltiness that complemented the sweetness of the bread.
The next shop I visited was the Kolache Factory. This is my favorite place. They offer one of the largest assortments of kolaches. They have breakfast fillings which are perfect for the first thing in the morning. I went for the bacon, egg, and cheese. They scramble the eggs and mix in chunks of crispy bacon and creamy cheese. What I love most about their kolaches is the bread. It is a yeast roll that is a little dense. It holds up well to the more robust ingredients they use for fillings. The yeast flavor gives the bread an extra sweetness.
My last stop was to a shop called Bucees. This place is amazing and I will be having a separate blog write up about Bucees. Rather than doing another savory kolache, I went for a dessert one here. This is the traditional kolache that came over from Central Europe, more specifically Czechoslovakia. It is very similar to a danish. I got the cherry filling. It was sweet with pieces of sour cherry throughout. The dough was slightly sour which went well with the cherries. They had other fruit fillings but cherry is my favorite.
I had such a fun time getting kolaches from Houston to San Antonio. I only hit 3 places but there are so many more places out there to try. I am going to have to do this again for sure. If you are in Texas check of these places. Each of them have several locations. I included links to each of their websites for everyone to visit.
Enjoy!
T
