Tag: dessert

Great Auntie Ann’s Kolatchkes

A couple of years after we moved to the country from the thriving metropolis of Hayward, Wisconsin, John and Rose Hanus brought their family from Chicago, Illinois, to a house along the Namekagon river about a quarter mile from the Rang household. John had taken a job as a butcher at Olson’s Market on Main Street, and Rose, like my mother, was a stay at home mom with a son Bob who was a few years older than I.

Mom and Dad were soon playing cards with Rose and John, and Bob and I were enjoying adventures together. We valued our neighbors. There were only four houses on the mile and a half of Phipps Road between Highway 63 and the village of Phipps, where my Grandpa Rang first set foot in Sawyer county. When we moved to the new house on Phipps Road, the once-bustling railroad stop that the conductor announced by calling “Phipps!” consisted of three houses and the empty hotel/general store/saloon/train depot.

Bob and I spent a lot of time fishing, swimming and eating snacks at each other’s homes. Mom and Rose cooked a lot of different things. Mom’s cooking grew out of our families’ German background, while Rose’s owed much to the Bohemian heritage she shared with John.

One specialty she made that I still dream of were kolatchkes, a tender pastry filled with prunes, poppyseed, apricots and other good things. We had two good bakeries in Hayward when I was growing up, but Rose’s kolatchkes put theirs to shame. Once she knew I was interested in seeing how they were made, she let me watch her work. I may have written down the recipe, but if so it is long gone. All I really remember is that she mixed butter and cream cheese with sugar and flour, rolled out the dough and produced little square pastries that she sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Several years ago I tried to make kolatchkes like the ones Rose baked. After a couple of attempts I produced a batch that tasted pretty good. I even wrote down what I did, so I could make them again. Unfortunately, I misplaced or lost the notes. For the last three or four years I have been telling myself that I should try to make them again.

A few weeks ago, Jerri and I went to the Funeral Mass for Barb, the wife of my cousin Jack who lives at Hayward. On the dessert table at the luncheon afterwards was a tray of kolatchkes that looked a lot like the ones Rose used to make. Since there were lots of people behind me in line, I took only one.

Back at our table, I watched one of my cousins eating his kolatchke before the potatoes and salads. LIke me, he believes in eating dessert first. I followed his example and bit into an absolutely delicious prune kolatchke.

The Parish Secretary put me in touch with the lady who baked them. Cindy works full time for the Hayward School District, but her real love is baking. Barb was her godmother, and Cindy remembered Barb telling her that the prune kolatches were her favorite, so she made them for the luncheon. I can understand why Barb liked them.

Cindy’s email explains where she got the recipe: “The recipe is from my Great Auntie Ann–she has passed away in the last year.  She was 96.” I wonder how many batches of kolatchkes Auntie Ann made in her long life. Hundreds possibly and many probably for occasions like the one that prompted Cindy to bake them for Barb’s “sending off meal.”

I enjoy knowing how recipes came to me, and this is one that I hope you will try and treasure in the years to come. And as you eat them, think of Rose and Auntie Ann–two ladies who knew how to make wonderful kolatchkes. And Cindy also, who is carrying on the tradition.

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 lb. butter
4 oz. cream cheese
2 cups powdered sugar
3 egg yolks
3 cups all-purpose flour

PROCEDURE:

Put the the butter and cream cheese into a mixing bowl and allow them to soften at room temperature for a half hour or so. Cream the powdered sugar into the butter and cheese, adding a half cup of sugar at a time.

Separate three eggs and lightly beat the yolks before adding them to the sugar, butter and cheese. Mix well until you have a smooth batter. Sift a half cup of flour over the batter and mix thoroughly. Continue with the rest of the flour, a half cup at a time, until you have a stiff dough. The dough will lose its stickiness with the next step.

Cover the mixing bowl and chill the dough for at least two hours. A few minutes before you begin to roll out the kolatchkes, preheat the oven to 375º and grease your cookie sheets.

Lightly flour a work surface. Divide the dough into four pieces. Knead one piece into a ball and press it into a disk with the palm of your hand. Roll the disk to an eighth inch thick rectangle. Using a pizza cutter or knife, trim to square your work and cut the dough into 2 1/2 inch squares. Return the trimmings to the bowl and form them into a ball for the final sheet of kolatchtkes.

Put a teaspoon of filling in the center of each square and fold the four corners to the center to make a smaller square or overlap two opposing corners over the filling. Transfer the kolatchkes to a baking sheet as you form them. Bake on a center rack for twelve to fifteen minutes or until the edges begin to turn golden.

Cool on waxed paper and sprinkle with powdered sugar. This recipe makes three to four dozen kolatchkes.

NOTES: There are two different kinds of kolatchkes. Those made by Cindy’s Auntie Ann and Rose have a flaky pastry made of butter, cream cheese, sugar and flour. The other kind is made with a tender yeast dough like you find in sweet rolls or coffee cake. Both kinds are tasty, but I much prefer the kind made by Rose, Cindy and Auntie Ann.

Everyone has a favorite filling for kolatchkes.  I like prune, poppyseed, cream cheese, cherry and apricot.  You can use your favorite jam as a filling or buy prepared fillings, but here are simple recipes for prune and apricot fillings.

INGREDIENTS for prune filling:  

2 cups prunes

Water

1 T lemon juice

3 1/2 to 4 T sugar

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Dash of cloves

PROCEDURE:

Chop the prunes fine, cover them with cold water and bring them to a boil in a small covered saucepan.  Simmer them for about twelve minutes stirring several times and adding more water if necessary.   Be careful not to let the prunes stick to the bottom of the pan.

Turn off the heat, add three and a half tablespoons of sugar plus the cinnamon, cloves and lemon juice.  Stir well until you have a thick paste.  Taste and add a little more sugar if you think it is not quite sweet enough.  However, remember that the kolatchtkes are dusted with powdered sugar. 

This recipe makes enough filling for two batches of kolatchkes, or you can use the extra to fill a coffee cake.

INGREDIENTS for apricot filling:

8 oz. dried apricots, finely chopped

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 tsp. lemon juice

PROCEDURE:

Combine the apricots and 3⁄4 cup water in a 2-qt. saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the water is evaporated and apricots are plump. Add the sugar, lemon juice, and 1⁄4 cup water, and cook, stirring frequently, until thickened, 8-10 minutes; remove pan from heat and let cool. Spoon about 1 tbsp. filling into each kolatchtke before baking.

Ma’s Salad Dressing Cake

Jerri sometimes thinks that my family is weird. When I object, she reminds me of the time in August when my family planned a picnic at a park near Minong, Wisconsin. It was a nice park along a flowage with picnic tables, fishing spots, enough shade to be comfortable but open enough that the bugs weren’t bad.

Unfortunately, when we got there, another family had already taken over the park for their picnic. Never mind that they were at least two blocks away or that they were quietly enjoying the natural setting. Even their kids were having fun without screaming at the tops of their voices, which was more than we expected from my younger siblings.

We drove to the picnic table furthest from the interlopers and proceeded with our picnic. However, it just didn’t feel right with other people at our park. They must have felt the same way, since they left half an hour after our arrival. I sometimes wish that I could apologize to them for ruining their picnic.

The problem is that Jerri doesn’t really appreciate the fact that when I was a boy, we made a point of having a lake to ourselves for our Fourth of July picnic. The Hayward area is blessed with some big, famous lakes. The Chippewa Flowage, Round Lake, Lac Court D’Oreilles and Lake Namekagon attract thousands of visitors every summer. The boat landings, beaches, campgrounds and parks are filled with people enjoying the north woods.

But there are hundreds of small lakes nearby for those of us who want a little peace and quiet with our picnics. Granted that most of these lakes lack picnic tables, toilets, swimming beaches and boat landings, they still have picnic spots. When I was a boy, a picnic spot was defined as a place where Mom and Dad felt that we could manage a picnic without losing a kid.

Dad would find some dead logs that he could turn into a bench and some wood for a fire. Usually Mom would choose the exact spot for the picnic, which had to include at least eight feet of fairly level ground to put down a blanket for a tablecloth in sight of the lake where we kids were busy fishing, swimming, exploring the lakeshore, hunting frogs or picking leeches off our feet. Those were glorious days!

Sometime late in June we would begin discussing where we would have our Fourth of July picnic. Dad always had the final say, but Mom could veto a choice if she felt strongly about it. “Too many bugs, poison ivy, too far to drive” were all legitimate reasons for rejecting first choices.

On the morning of the Fourth we packed the car and headed out, sometimes with Dad’s canoe on top of the old Plymouth. The lakes we headed for were not on state highways, of course, and they were also almost never on graveled town or forest roads. We braved logging roads or dirt tracks that my Dad had scouted during hunting season or when he was a young man working as a logger.

Once in a while we had to fall back on Dad’s second choice, usually one rejected by Mom but now better than nothing, when someone had beaten us to “our” lake. but most of the time, we enjoyed a picnic at a lake that only Dad in our family had seen before. Two or three times I remember someone driving up, saying hello and turning around on their way to their own lake for the day.

Our picnics were not fancy. The standard menu was wieners roasted over a wood fire, potato salad, canned pork and beans and something for dessert. There was pop for us kids and beer for Mom and Dad. If it was sunny with a breeze to discourage the bugs and if we had one of our favorite bottles of pop (Orange Crush, Nehi Grape, Hires Root Beer and Coca Cola were popular choices.) still cold from the ice box at home, we felt that we were in the best place in the world.

Mom made the potato salad and the dessert. The wieners were usually skin-on wieners made locally at the meat market, but the pork and beans, hot dog buns and ketchup were from the A & P or Co-op. We used to buy pop in returnable bottles by the case at the feed mill where we also bought laying mix and crushed oyster shells for Mom’s chickens. I don’t remember where Dad bought the beer, but it could have been from his friend Fritz who owned the Twin Gables bar.

Since Mom baked lots of beans I wonder why we always had the canned variety on our picnics. It must have been because if she brought homemade baked beans we would need to bring a pan to heat them in while she could just open a can and set it next to the fire to warm the beans.

Of course, it helps to have a can opener. I remember a couple of times when the can opener was left at home. I was fascinated to learn that a jack knife can be used as a can opener and later that some knives actually had a can opener tucked into the array of blades. I still have one of those knives with a half dozen tools on it, and it has come in handy when we forgot the can opener or corkscrew.

We often had cake for dessert, both at home and on picnics. My sister Patsy found the recipe for a moist chocolate cake in Mom’s recipe boxes for “Ma’s Salad Dressing Cake” that I am sure she made for some of our picnics. The recipe is in my mother’s handwriting, and “Ma” is Grandma Hopp, and I am keeping the name Mom gave it.
This is one of those recipes that sounds awful but turns out delicious. You can make it with either whipped salad dressing (like Miracle Whip) or mayonnaise. Salad dressing cakes were popular in the 1940’s and 50’s. I don’t know if it was because eggs were sometimes hard to come by during World War Two or whether Kraft may have promoted the recipe as a way to sell more Miracle Whip after its introduction at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933.

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup salad dressing
1 cup sugar
1 cup hot water
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
5 T cocoa

PROCEDURE:

Preheat the oven to 350º. Grease and flour a nine by nine inch cake pan with two teaspoons of flour and one third teaspoon of cocoa blended together.

Mix the salad dressing, sugar and hot water together in a large mixing bowl. Sift the flour, soda and cocoa gradually into the liquid ingredients, stirring thoroughly after each addition. Then beat the batter for a minute with an electric mixer at medium speed.

Pour the batter into the greased cake pan and bake on the center rack in the oven for about 30 minutes or until done. Use the toothpick test to check for doneness. If a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out without any batter on it, the cake is done. If it does not, let the cake bake another five minutes and test again.

Cool the cake and frost it with your favorite icing.

NOTES: Mom’s recipe called for a scant teaspoon of soda. I never asked her what she meant by scant. Obviously more than three-quarters, so I just used a full teaspoon and the cake turned out fine. Most cake recipes include vanilla in the batter, but this one does not. The cake is moist and delicious made according to the recipe, but I may try adding vanilla sometime to see how it tastes with the extra flavoring.