Filled Sweet Rolls

The cup was given to me by my V.T.'s Becky H. and Laura R. (Thanks, girls!)  

Thinking of my hubby's late Aunt Alma-- and, missing her. She was such a special and sweet person-- a great homemaker, cooker, baker, great everything!  While our families visited back 'n forth quite often, a farmer's life/schedule can simply 'get in the way' of things we'd like to do.  Now that we aren't as tied down since we sold our milk cows, it's too late.  Special times don't wait for freer schedules, that's for sure.  Lately, I've been thinking of her (and her sister, the late Aunt Esther) very often.  Today, my mind went back to Aunt Alma making what I thought were the BEST kolache's (for the Bohemian in her family, she'd say)!!  Her fillings for these baked goodies varied between prune, poppy seed and other fruit.   OH, SO GOOD!  Well,... with me being much younger and busy with children and farming duties during those earlier years, I never asked her for the recipe--           : (            but, I surely wish I had!

Not having her recipe, I decided to make up a batch of pretty regular (sort of) sweet rolls and 'pretend' they were kolaches in how I prepared them. (I seriously doubt that's something that can be 'pretended', though!)  While these didn't end up as large and spread out as hers were, I am happy to say these turned out g-o-o-d enough that, after having just one, I quickly put them 'out of my sight'!  : )

Yield:  With the dough being rolled to 1/2-inch thick before cutting, I ended up with two dozen rolls, with a small chunk of dough left-over.

INGREDIENTS for the dough:

• 2 tablespoons dry yeast
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 1 tablespoon sugar

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• 2 cups milk, heated alone till 'hot to touch'
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 egg  yolks, slightly beaten

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• 5 and 1/2 cup sifted flour (bread flour will make a lighter product)
• 2 teaspoons salt

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• 3/4 more cup of sifted flour

DIRECTIONS:

• Dissolve yeast in water with the tablespoon of sugar, set aside until frothy.
• Heat milk in saucepan until pretty hot to touch; remove from heat and add to it the butter and sugar.  When this mixture cools down to being 'just warm', add the 2 slightly beaten egg yolks.
• Add the bubbling yeast mixture, and mix everything together.
• Add the 5 and 1/4 cups flour and 2 teaspoons salt to the above.  Using my Kitchen Aid stand mixer, and with the paddle attachment, I let this mix for about 4 minutes.  The dough was still very, VERY sticky!  
• Dump in last 1 cup of flour and mix with the dough hook on mixer for another 2-3 minutes.  (The dough will still be quite sticky-- some sticky is a good thing!)
• Remove dough from bowl and transfer to a lightly floured surface for kneading until the surface gets "satiny"-- 5-8 minutes?   (I think I may have used another 1/4 cup of flour by dusting the kneading surface during the first couple of minutes.)
• Put kneaded dough ball into a rather large greased/oiled bowl, turn 'ball' to oil top,  cover and let rise in a warm place until doubled.  (1 hour?)
• When fully doubled, punch down; roll dough out to be 1/2" thick, cut with biscuit cutter. (Next time, I'm going to roll the dough closer to 1/4" thick and cut it with a bigger cutter-- mainly, just to see how that works out.)

 

• Place on greased or parchment-lined baking pan, leaving about one-inch space between each. 
• Brush with melted butter and let rise again (covered) until light to the touch-- about 25-30 minutes? (If you want to cover rolls at this stage, you can spray a sheet of Saran Wrap with non-stick spray and gently lay that on top-- something that will come off easily without hurting the 'rising that happened'.)
• Carefully, make a one-inch circular indention in the center of each raised roll and fill with the filling of your choice.  (I used Solo brand raspberry filling for some; and made cream cheese filling* for others.)  Some bakers make a poppy seed OR apricot filling; and sometimes, use canned pie filling.

Above:  For some, I put a dab of cream cheese filling in first, then a dab of raspberry.

• Let rise while you preheat the oven to 375-degrees.
• Bake for about 20 minutes.
• Remove from oven and brush with melted butter, again.

After baking, you can top with glaze** OR... another option is to wait until they are cooled and dust them with powdered sugar through a screen/sifter.

*CREAM CHEESE FILLING:  Beat together 8 oz. package of softened cream cheese with 1 egg yolk, until very smooth.

**GLAZE:  2 cups powdered sugar, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, 2 tablespoons softened butter and almost 4 tablespoons milk.  Combine all and spoon over rolls while they are still warm.