Hello there! A loooooong time ago now I posted kolaches, and so did Jennifer (in GF format, of course). Our posts are quite anemic on filling recipes, though, since Jennifer can use pre-made pie filling (and does) and I hadn’t yet managed to make very many natural sugar fillings, and mostly relied on apricot and cream cheese. I’ve figured out a few more, and figured out how to do closed-face savory kolaches, so I thought I’d share with you :-). So, this post is rather simple, but it goes along with those earlier ones. Truvia is, in fact, gluten-free, so you can use these fillings with Jennifer’s kolache bread recipe if you’d like. I do not know how well her dough would roll, though, so you may or may not be able to make the closed versions. Oh, and here at long last, is the topping recipe! I neglected to make it for the original post and never got back there and posted it, so here you go!

You’ll just have to look at the pictures in the other posts, though, since these were already being eaten before I could get pictures :D. Plus, the closed face ones (the only ones you haven’t seen before) don’t look like much, since hey, they’re all wrapped up! If you are wondering, however, they are long and tubular looking (closed-ended tube), not round. Much easier to roll that way, and to make sausage fit!

Blueberry Kolache Filling (enough for appx. 6 kolaches)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries
• 1 1/2 TBS Truvia
• 3 TBS water
• 1 tsp cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp lemon juice

Directions:

1. Whisk the cornstarch into the water. Add the blueberries, Truvia and cornstarch-water to a saucepan and bring to a boil.

2. Add the lemon juice. Boil and stir until slightly thickened, like a thin syrup with blueberries :D.

3. Strain the mixture over a small bowl, separating the blueberries from the liquid. You can keep this liquid to use on pancakes and the like–it’s just blueberry syrup!

4. Put the blueberries into another dish and mash roughly with a fork until you have a chunky paste. This is your kolache filling. Put one tablespoon into an indentation on an open kolache, as described in the earlier recipe.

Potato, Cheese and/or Sausage Filling

This one is very much a taste factor, and any combination of these is good (well, Sean tells me the sausage are good. Obviously, as a vegetarian, I stick to the non-sausagey ones). Tweak the proportions to taste, of course. For any of these you will take the golf-ball round of dough BEFORE the final rising and pat it out to about 1/8″ thick. Mine usually end up being squares, this is fine. Put any of the below fillings in the center and roll the dough around it, pinching the seams and ends to close.

Potato and Cheese: Shred a raw potato through a cheese grater, just like you would to make hashbrowns from fresh potato. Grate your cheese(s) of choice. I recommend both cheddar and swiss, as they are quite good in kolaches. Put a generous tablespoon of both potato and one cheese in the center of your dough square and roll shut. You can do both cheeses, in which case you do about half a tablespoon of each to avoid overloading the dough.

Sausage and Cheese: Put roughly chopped pre-cooked bratwurst (flavored or plain, whichever you like), chorizo, breakfast sausage or italian sausage along the center of your dough square. Put 1 – 1 1/2 TBS of your preferred grated cheese on top and roll shut. You can use this same technique with cooked and chopped ham if you prefer.

Potato, Sausage, and Cheese: Put slightly less meat and potato in with the same amount of cheese and proceed as above.

For a spicy kick: Add 1 tsp roasted and chopped New Mexico Green Chile or jalapenos to any of the above, or do just chile and cheese (adding some extra cheese to make up the bulk).

Open-Face Kolache Topping (Posypka)

Ingredients:

• 1 TBS butter
• 1 TBS Truvia
• 3 TBS flour

Directions:

Cut together all the ingredients until very finely combined. Start by cutting it together with a fork, and once the butter is broken up into smallish pieces start rubbing/crumbling it all together with your fingers. You’ll need to to get it to the fine crumb. The texture is much like that powdered Parmesan cheese they serve at pizza parlors (but this tastes NOTHING like that, don’t worry!). This enough for a whole batch of my kolaches. However, this should only go on open-face kolaches. It does not belong on the closed ones with their savory fillings (it’s just not done :D).