Goo Versus Blender Versus Wooden Spoon

And the winner is....?

Bread Machine Mistakes and Other Lessons Learned

Bread dough left on any surface past 5 minutes first turns into a sticky goo, then into a rock so hard that it will cut your hands. You need a chisel to get it off the counter. Picture this: Inside the bread machine there are cakes of hardened lava. Cleaning this mess would have to wait until I got home from work.

The next morning rolls around, I drag my hungover ass into work. I

I drag home and start making the kolache rolls.

Before I started cleaning, I formed the walnut sized dough balls. Why? Because if these kolaches were like the others, it would take about 10 years to rise for the 2nd time. So I get my balls formed.

I wait the obligatory 2 hours.

The balls are actually moving along more nicely than I dare to hope. I almost did a smarty pants dance, but I restrained myself lest the kolache karma take over and disaster ensued.

I got smart this time and made them in disposable trays so that I don't have to spend 10 years cleaning my pans. I popped the kolaches in the oven and hoped for the best.
Then came cleaning the bread machine. GROSS! Never again would I leave a bread machine unattended!! If it were mine, I might have thrown it out to save the trouble. (Or at least rock, paper, scissored Jon for the chore of cleaning it.) Being that I HAD to return it, I scrubbed away and remove Mt. Vesuvius from the interior.

As I excavated, I wondered how the machine did on non-Herculean breads. I decided to start a rosemary loaf while waiting for the kolaches to bake. We'll see how that goes.

No Help From Others and Other Failed Missions

For awhile now, I have been trying to get Jon's grandmother to teach me what I am doing all wrong when it comes to making kolaches.

She seriously laughed out loud when she found out I was stirring everything by hand. "Use a mixer!" Okay, Grandma H, I'll do that.

Grandma H lives about 2 hours away. She says, "Call me when you want to learn." Well I have called, and called, and called. "Now's not a good time" is always her answer. There is never a good time. I swear his family has something against me.

"She has to prepare for it," Jon informs me, "She makes like 12 dozen at a time. It takes a lot of mental preparation, plus she has to go to the store."

I offered to buy everything in advance and bring it the 200 miles so that she doesn't have to go out. No luck.

"THE HELL WITH IT times two!!!!!!!

I decide to take another stab at it on my own. I gave the stand mixer a whirl, and I think I burned up the motor. The kolache dough climbed the mixing blades, embedding itself in the machine's plastic casing.

I guess I will have to register for a new one if Jon and I ever get engaged.

Third Attempt: Why fat and processed flour matter

During the third attempt, I had ditched my last recipe and written down one I had located elsewhere on the Internet. Much to my frustration, Jon's mother was not too helpful with advice. It was like she was hiding the family recipe from me so her boy would dump me. "Oh dear," she chortled, "you don't make kolaches off of recipes. You have to learn in person." Oh screw it.

At this time, I was in the middle of health food kick. All organic, hormone-free, cage-free goodness was only what was good for me. I had on hand some whole wheat flour full of fibery goodness. Low fat milk and margarine to boot. What could possibly go wrong! I would just lose a bunch of calories and add to the overall health of the beloved treat.

Ummm yea right.

So I gruel over stiff batter beaten by hand with a wooden spoon. I lovingly pour my $10 bag of organic wheat flour into my low fat, scalded, organic (read $5 a gallon) milk. Then, I mix in the tub of margarine as a substitute for the 300 sticks of butter the recipes seem to require.

At this time, Jon steps in and says "smells good in here". Turns out, the dough was actually starting to smell like it was supposed to. I do a mini-victory dance, known in this household as the "smarty-pants dance".

I get all proud and teary-eyed over my whole wheat, kolache-smell-alike dough and begin to cut it into the "walnut size" balls every recipe calls for. Now, to let them rise for the 14th time... I wait.

I wait some more....

I turn on all the lights in the kitchen to warm it up.....

I turn on the stove to heat it up some more....

*Tragedy strikes*

The balls kind of spread out instead of fluffing up.

At this point, the dough balls had been "rising" for hours. I finally said, "The hell with it!" and popped them in the oven.

Well, turns out that butter fat and processed flour has a place in pastry baking. At least in kolache recipes.

These kolaches were gooey (again) and tasted like stale, wheat bread that has been sitting in your grandmother's pantry since WWII. All four dozen kolaches in this batch were AWFUL.

So, I did what every corn-fed American white-girl does when they have food they need to get out of their house in a hurry: I took them to the office. ALL my baking disasters have been pawned off on my co-workers.


People in office settings will eat anything as long as it does not try to pass as healthy. It must have something to do with cubicles, florescent lighting, and corporate servitude.

Usually, things are snatched up in minutes. Not today. I had to spend hours guilt-tripping people to eating the kolaches I brought. I took my pans home later that day, hanging my head in shame.

I cried and boo hoo-ed like a small child when I got home. I think I seriously weeped into my flour pail. Jon came home to find me curled up on the kitchen floor.

"You'll never marry me," I waled at him.

He sits down next to me and tries to be comforting: "Don't worry babe, most of the people except my grandma can not make kolaches too well. You have to be like... a grandma to do it right."

At the rate I am going, I just might die an old maid before I get this right.

Second Attempt

"Okay, okay!" I told myself. "The next batch will be easier. You rushed through the first one, probably over kneaded the dough. Let's try this one more time."

This time I made sure I had enough of every ingredient and went to town. I stirred, I poured, and scalded milk appropriately...sorta. The batch came out a gooey mess.

Jon and I each ate one and threw the remaining 6 dozen in the trash. Boo.