Texas Style Kolache Recipe (Klobasnek)
This delicious Texas style kolache recipe, or klobasnek, is a soft, slightly sweet dough stuffed with sausage and cheese! A classic Texas breakfast.
Okay, first things first. These are not real czech kolaches. Technically, they are klobasnek. As Texas Monthly put it, If It’s Not Sweet, It’s Not a Kolache – It’s a Klobasnek. But, it’s what is commonly known in Texas and for the sake of search-ability I have named it kolache.
So please don’t come at me in the comments, I promise I know what is and isn’t a kolache.
I’ve been in the PNW for almost a year now. There are a few things I miss about Texas – late night runs to Whataburger, HEB and decent Tex Mex food. Thankfully, I have been able to recreate my favorites up here or find a decent alternative. But for a while there was something that still eluded me – soft, pillowy donuts and sausage kolaches.
If I close my eyes, I can still imagine walking into a Shipleys at 6am… the air so sweet it’s almost like you can taste it.
I haven’t mastered the donut yet, but I am so pleased with today’s recipe. It tastes just like the sausage kolaches I remember.
It is a little laborious, but it is one of love. This dough requires two proofs, but it’s easy enough to set aside and get a few chores done or enjoy an hour of TV.
These tools aren’t totally necessary, but I promise they will make your life a whole lot easier. Get yourself a decent rolling pin (and ditch the wine bottle you’ve been using for the past 6 months), a dough scraper, parchment paper or a silpat, a quality pastry brush (Boar bristles retain more butter and is easier to spread, in my opinion), and a thermometer to test your water (too hot and it will kill the yeast).
Armed with the right tools, I think you’ll be very successful with this recipe!
Let me know what you think!
Until next time. X
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Texas Style Kolache Recipe
Texas Style Kolache Recipe – aka Klobasnek
This delicious Texas style kolache recipe, or klobasnek, is a soft, slightly sweet dough stuffed with sausage and cheese! A classic Texas breakfast.
- Total Time: 2 hours 35 minutes
- Yield: 12 1x
Ingredients
Overnight dough
- 1/3 cup boiling water
- 2/3 cups All Purpose flour
Bread Dough
- 2 tsp active dry yeast
- 3/4 cup warm water 110-115°F
- 2 2/3 cups All Purpose flour
- 3 Tbsp milk powder
- 1/3 cup + 1 tsp granulated sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup butter, melted
Filling
- 12 slices deli American cheese (not singles)
- 6 hot dogs or sausages, cut in half
Instructions
Overnight Dough
- Mix together the flour and boiling water until it turns into a wet dough.
- Place the overnight dough on a sheet of plastic wrap and close it, twisting into a ball.
- Refrigerate overnight.
Bread Dough
- Heat the water until it reaches 110-115°F (don’t chance this – test it with a food thermometer to be sure) and pour the yeast over the top.
- Let it sit for 5 minutes, or until it looks frothy.
- In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, milk powder, salt and sugar.
- Make a well in the center, add the yeast mixture and stir to combine.
- Add the egg, stir, then the overnight dough and make sure all ingredients are fully incorporated.
- Stir in the melted butter until it forms a soft, shaggy dough. The dough should start to pull away from the sides of the bowl.
- On a generously floured work surface, turn out the dough and knead for 10 minutes. The dough should be smooth and elastic, not sticky or wet.
- Place in a clean bowl covered with a kitchen towel and let rise for 1 hour.
- Roll the dough out into a 16″ x 12″ rectangle.
- Cut the dough into 12 equal rectangles.
- Fold each slice of cheese into thirds and stack on top of each piece of dough, then place the halved hot dogs on top.
- Roll up each kolache, pulling and tucking or pinching the edges to make sure there are no holes.
- Place each of them on a sheet pan lined with parchment or a silpat silicone baking mat at least 2″ apart with the seam side down.
- Cover with a clean kitchen towel or loose plastic wrap and let rise for at least 1 hour.
- If making this the night before to bake the next morning, prepare recipe as stated including final rise, then chill loosely covered 12-18 hours. Allow time for the kolaches to come up to room temp before baking in the morning.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Bake 17-20 minutes, or until golden. Enjoy warm.
Notes
Tools
- parchment paper or silicone baking mat
- plastic wrap or clean kitchen towel
- thermometer
- mixing bowls
- sheet pan
- rolling pin
- pastry cutter
See post for tools I used in this recipe.
If you don’t like or have access to American cheese, use cheddar or any style you like. My favorite Texas kolaches use American and it’s why I chose to use it in this recipe.
- Prep Time: 2 hours 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: Czech American
Recipe adapted from Woman Scribbles.
Loved it!
Hi, if I use uncooked andouille sausages, do I need to cook the sausages to the required temp before wrapping in dough and baking? Or will raw sausages cook through with the dough? Or is it just best to use precooked sausages? Thanks!
I would highly recommend cooking any uncooked meets before adding them to the pastry. This will help to eliminate any extra moisture from the filling and will allow the dough to cook through in the suggested amount of time, whereas uncooked meat may slow the cooking time of the dough, and likely the proving time as well.
This recipe comes the closest to the klobasniky my husband is missing so much from Texas–we’ve been testing a bunch of them. Our next step is to do your recipe again tomorrow but with an egg wash before the bake and butter right after they leave the oven.
But I have to know–what made you decide to do the overnight dough as a flour + boiled water combo? The results do speak for themselves, but after reading through comments, I saw that you eventually tried doing a refrigerated rise as a later step, too. My understanding from baking challah over the years was that bread dough that has egg in it will develop a more interesting flavor if at least one of the rises happens in the fridge. Sometimes I even do every single rise for my challah loaves in the fridge, the only issue being that it takes a while for the dough to get back up to size once you bring it out to room temperature each time.
But for all of those rises, the egg is already present. I wonder if, in your case, if you went all out and did long, cold rises for several steps (bringing it back out to get back to room temp before proceeding each time, though), would it have an even better flavor? I think I learned the challah fridge rise technique from Deb Perelman’s blog.
I saw Josh Weissman’s youtube video about kolaches, and his were definitely modified to suit his tastes–they looked awesome still. I think his flourishes that get the color and extra butteriness at the end combined with your more true-to-life kolache will end up being the goldilocks klobasnek my husband is craving so dearly.
Soooo I did my first attempt today. I made the overnight dough, but it was not a wet dough. It was pretty stiff. Then today when I was trying to combine the bread dough and overnight dough, they wouldn’t mix. The overnight dough was too stiff and bonded to itself. I finally got it mostly mixed but could not get a soft shaggy dough. I kept trying to add more flour to my counter top but it would not stop being sticky. I finally just gave up.
Any suggestions on how I may have messed up?
When you’re letting them rise with the sausage in them, are you leaving them on the counter or refrigeratorating them? I don’t want to leave sausage just sitting on the counter for an hour if it’s not food safe. Thanks!
They rise on the counter at room temp. Precooked sausages and hot dogs are safe for up to two hours according to the USDA. 🙂
Hi there – I make an asian sweet bread that involves hot dogs and we just let them rise in room temp on counter no problem. Just additional assurance!
Sounds wonderful. Any chance I could substitute with gluten free flour?