Texas Cream Cheese Kolaches Are a Real Taste of Home

The brioche-like bread is the perfect host for your favorite fillings.

These breakfast pastries are beloved statewide for a reason. Alex Lepe/TNS

There aren’t too many foods that really tug at my homesick Texan heartstrings the way kolaches do. Kolaches are a Czech pastry made of tender, brioche-like bread filled with sweetened cream cheese, fruit, or, if you’re lucky, a combination of both. As popular and beloved as they are in Texas, they are not very well-known once you leave the state.

This is a recipe I make when I miss my Saturday morning kolaches more than I can bear. It also happens to be a real crowd-pleaser, whether you grew up with the pastry or not (think of them like the Texan equivalent of mini danishes). Once you get comfortable with the dough, you can start to experiment with other fillings (both sweet and savory).

Why You’ll Love It

• The pillowy, brioche-like dough makes the perfect base for sweetened cream cheese and jam.
• While some kolaches are baked far enough apart that they don’t touch, I find that this pull-apart method keeps the dough extra tender—and makes it more fun to serve.

All About Kolaches

Kolaches have been ingrained in Texas’ food culture for a long time. By the early 1900s, over 15,000 Czech people had immigrated to Texas, bringing kolac (round yeasted dough pastries) with them. Texas highways are peppered with bakeries and rest stops all claiming to make the best kolaches in the state (they’re all delicious, FYI). There is a savory version, most traditionally stuffed with sausage and cheese and maybe a little jalapeño, called a klobasnek—although many Texans refer to all of them as kolaches.