In Texas there are many ways to enjoy breakfast, but there are none quite as cherished as thekolache.
“Anyone that has spent time in Texas and been exposed to kolaches has fallen in love,” says seven-generation Texan and award-winning cookbook author Lisa Fain.
By the early 1900s more than9,000 Czech peoplehad immigrated to Texas. They brought with them recipes for koláč—hand-sized circles of yeasty baked dough, imbued with fillings likeapricot, prune, and sweetened soft cheeses. Kolaches soon became interwoven with Texas’ culinary tapestry, and bakeries popped up throughout Central and West Texas. Over time, bakeries began crafting their own interpretations of the pastry, and theconcept of kolaches continues to spark lively debate in Texas.
For Houstonians, enamored with the kolaches from longtime city favoriteShipley Do-Nuts, the ideal version of the pastry is what most Czech Americans refer to as a klobasnek, which looks more like pigs in a blanket: sausage (traditionally kielbasa) draped with melted cheese, nestled entirely in a warm, doughy wrapping. Many in the Czech community, however, consider true kolaches to be the yeasty, doughy round pastries filled with various fruit jams, poppyseed, and cream or cottage cheese. Most Texans across the state, particularly Houstonians, use the term interchangeably to refer to a variety of pastries spanning the spectrum of klobasnek and kolache, which are filled with an increasingly wide array of of sweet and savory fillings, such as crawfish etouffee (as they are atKoala Kolache), and halal butter chicken and smoked brisket (as you might find atKarma Kolache).
The pastry’s long history inspired Texas native Emily Stone, a pastry chef and owner ofBexar Kolachesin San Antonio. Stone pays homage to the original roots of kolaches, listing the pastry’s biography on a colorful wall in the bakery and maintaining close ties with classic Texas bakeries like theCzech Stopin West andWeikel's Bakeryin La Grange, which are known for their preservation of Czech heritage. At Bexar Kolaches, guests will find both the sausage and cheese and fruit kolaches that are commonly served throughout the state. But Stone also channels the energy found in the city around her, and honors San Antonio’s rich Mexican American culture at the bakery. She celebrates the fruterías andmangonadafound throughout the city through sweet kolaches permeated with the fruity flavors.
“I love the specificity of San Antonio culture,” says Stone. “It's really fun to celebrate it in new ways that I haven't seen in other places.”
A lifelong baker, Stone launched Bexar Kolaches in December 2020 after noticing a lack of kolache bakeries in the city. A Czech college roommate (and some subsequent road trips across Texas as an adult) introduced her to the fruit- and cream cheese-filled pastries in Central and West Texas, and the sausage and cheese kolaches that have come to define Houston’s kolache culture. She spent ten days in the Czech Republic researching kolaches, where she encountered flavors like prune and poppy seed—now mainstays of her otherwise rotating menu. Stone, who holds a Ph.D. in anthropology, aims to provide a new template for modern and culturally expansive interpretation of the doughy treat.
“It's really important to me that we have those [prune and poppy seed kolaches] in our bakery, because I want my own friends who have Czech heritage, and people in San Antonio, as well as visitors and tourists, to experience the origins and that new fusion reflecting modern San Antonio culture.”
This sensibility shows up in flavors that aren’t readily available in other parts of Texas, such as a sweet and delightfully sticky kolache stuffed with fig preserves. A rich Mexican chocolate pastry is a local favorite, as are kolaches flavored with the indomitable combination of guava and cream cheese. Some are even filled with pecans to highlight the official state nut of Texas.
Bexar Kolaches offers vegetarian-friendly savory options, including spinach and artichoke and potato and egg. On the other end of the spectrum, a carne guisada kolache and the chorizo and egg kolache reflect the state’s love affair with meat, thanks in large part to the Mexican and Spanish roots of Texas cuisine. Stone pays homage to memories of her childhood in north Texas through a barbacoa kolache, which comes stuffed with the chile-tinged cuts of beef, and she nods to San Antonio’s love of the Waco-born Big Red soft drink with her Big Red kolache. She often tinkers with experimental kolaches, such as one made with croissant dough, which she observed in her native northern Texas. Stone's menu is a celebration of the massive state's diverse and enduring traditions, rooted in cultures spanning the globe.
“I think the variety of flavors we have here are really a testament to Texas itself—this idea that we can create something new here, that’s rooted in really important traditions.”
对于许多德州人,省长糕点的爱存在ond borders. When Houston native Lisa Fain moved to New York in 1995, there was only one restaurant she remembers that sold kolaches—and it only remained open for three months.
“My whole journey was: I couldn't get Texas food when I was living in New York, so I started cooking it.”
She recorded her culinary “expeditions” on her blog,Homesick Texan, which became the foundation for her cookbook,The Homesick Texan’s Family Table: Lone Star Cooking from My Kitchen to Yours.Kolaches, she says “were a natural fit.”
“It reminded me most of what I had grown up eating,” she says.
Fain, who has familial roots spanning the state, looked to newspaper clippings, community cookbooks, and other sources about Texas cuisine to develop a kolache recipe that resonates with many Texans who’ve enjoyed the fruit- and cream cheese-laden style of the treat. Her recipe borrows from the traditional style of making kolaches. The multi-part recipe—which requires making a dried fruit filling, a delightfully doughy pastry, and a cinnamon sugar crumble topping known as “posypka,” is a project—but there’s a sweet, comforting payoff. For Fain, it’s a pastry that’s truly representative of her home state’s spirit.
“Texans just take pride in all of our native foods,” she says. “Kolache—like queso and brisket and barbecue—is all part of that. It’s just one of those things that define you as a Texan.”
