Cream Cheese Kolaches

As a kid, my family vacationed on the Texas coast. On our way down, we would always stop at the famous Bon Ton Cafe & Bakery in LaGrange for a kolache fix. While kolaches have a variety of fillings, including plums, apricots, poppyseeds and more, I could never pass up the cream cheese ones {cheese before fruit, right?}. They were delicious. And the entire box would be gone by the time we drove into the next county.

Sadly, as an adult, we don't get down that way much anymore. And I've dearly missed these treats. However, I recently came across a hand-written recipe card that remedied my lack of yeasty, Czechoslovakian deliciousness.

I was given an old recipe box when my great aunt passed away several years ago. It was stuffed with hundreds of hand-written recipes. It's moved with me from home to home, always finding a little nook to be displayed in. 

A couple of years ago, I decided it would be fun to actually go through these recipes. And most of them were not written by my aunt, but by my uncle...a highly skilled, professional baker.

My Uncle Johnny was a baker at the Manhattan Cafe in San Antonio, Texas, from the 1930's through {we think} the 1970's, right before his death. He knew his way around a pie, and was well known for it. I thought the recipe box would be stuffed with just cake and pie recipes. And while I did find my fair share of those, I also came across a delightful little recipe for kolaches {along with one savory recipe that started with "half a cow"...but that's for a different blog post entirely}. 

I've put my own spin on the kolache recipe below, modernizing it and using some delicious Rhodes Bake-N-Serv rolls as the base. 

Ingredients:
Dough:
- 24 Rhodes White Dinner Rolls, thawed and risen slightly
- 3 tablespoons butter, melted

Filling:
- 1 (8 ounce) package of cream cheese, softened

Posipka (crumb topping):

Using the back of a good rounded spoon, make small wells in the tops of each roll. The butter on the rolls prevents the spoon from sticking to the dough. If it does stick, just butter the back of your spoon.

Put a tablespoon of filling into the well of each roll. Allow the rolls to rise again, for about 25-30 minutes.

Mix the posipka (crumb topping) ingredients together with a fork.

Sprinkle the topping onto each roll. Bake at 375 degrees for 17-23 minutes, watching carefully so they don't get too brown.