Kolaches

When we were playing at the Cook's house the other day, I was talking to Jessica about the Women's brunch coming up on Saturday. I have been asked to bring a savory dish and am still trying to figure out what to bring. She told me about Kolaches. Kolaches are Czech rolls that are usually filled with something sweet, but many bakeries offer savory ones, too. It inspired me to try making them to see if they would be fun to take to the brunch.

I actually found a America's Test Kitchen recipe for the dough (halved the sugar, doubled the salt - since their recipe was destined for sweet filling). Jessica suggested a sausage/egg/cheese filling and gave some great input on how to make the filling. I was inspired by a recent Giada De Laurentiis recipe to do a tomato/basil/cheese filling, too.

Here they are. I am glad I took a picture because Christian and I plowed through a bunch of them while we were analyzing them.

They are very tasty and fun to eat because they are so small - no more than 3 or 4 bites each. I ended up cooking the eggs in a double boiler to keep them soft and moist. Per Jessica's suggestion, I combined the eggs with sausage (Jimmy Dean tube sausage, precooked and chopped up) and cheddar cheese before filling the dough. For the tomato basil ones, I ended up mixing the tomatoes with Parmesan, Asiago and Mozzarella cheese. Both fillings would have benefited from more cheese.