Comments on: 12 Days of Cookies: #3 Apricot Bow Ties

By: Annamaria Settanni McDonald

Annamaria Settanni McDonald — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 15:55:54 +0000

I love these cookies. Yes they are a East European cookie called Kolaches. But I think they are pronounced Kolachky. I live in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio and I have a lot of East European neighbors, I’ve been eating these for a long time. Thanks for sharing! So I guess you know now it’s not just a Chicago thing….lol! Have a Happy New Year!

By: Karen

Karen — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 12:07:58 +0000

The ladies that commented about the Kolachies being round with fruit fillling may be referring to what most of us call Lindzer Tarts. Your Koachies aka Hungarian Filled Cookies are what we called them. If they google Lindzer Tarts they will surely find that recipe. The Recipe I used for years for Kolachies icalls for
4 cups of flour, 4 egg yolks, 1/3 cup pint of sour cream 1 lb of butter 4 Tbsp. Sugar, 4 tsp of baking powder. a pinch of salt and a shot of whiskey. Divid into 4 balls of dough, Refrigerate over night. Keep cold cuz its a sticky batter tough to roll out.
It’s a great recipe makes hundreds of cookies. We use Solo filings apricot, cherry, prune and nut. yummy! But I am trying yours this year. much less expensive!!!

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 22:12:44 +0000

Kathy- I haven’t tried. If you do, let us know!

By: Kathy

Kathy — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 19:37:06 +0000

Can these be frozen?

By: Cat @Breakfast to Bed

Cat @Breakfast to Bed — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 15:22:13 +0000

no lie, this is the EXACT same recipe as my Slovak grandmother. They’re so good, right? I was just googling them to see how others made them for my blog (to post to) and your blog popped up! LOVE it. I am partial to a honey glaze as opposed to sugar dust. These just always remind me of Christmas. You’ll be getting a pingback.

By: Tammy

Tammy — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 17:51:01 +0000

GREAT BLOG…I’m only sorry I didn’t find it until today! This is the EXACT recipe I was looking for. Although we are some mixed breed hybrid of polish descent and called these cookies kolacheke – I was thrilled to find the “other” kolacheke recipe too…I might make this a 2 baking kolacheke day – thanks to you! Have a great one! Enjoy today – that’s why it’s called the “present” <3

By: Ursula

Ursula — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 17:09:50 +0000

my grandmother made square kolachekies

By: Robert Nicholas

Robert Nicholas — Sun, 15 May 2011 14:42:16 +0000

@Tim. These are traditional kolache. Many eastern european countries have made these confectionary wonders for centuries. These happen to be Ukranian in origin. Just because they aren’t polish doesn’t make them any less traditional…

By: Robert Gural

Robert Gural — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 05:38:03 +0000

My Mom had a neighbor who made Kolacheke cookies with lard, egg and condensed milk and the dough was rolled into granulated sugar. My Dad still makes them and they are cheap to make and flakey from the lard and various fillings can be used. But beware, these cookies do not keep for a long time due to the lard but can be successfully frozen. Surprisingly flakey and good.

By: Marybeth

Marybeth — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 23:26:24 +0000

Pittsburgh too, ( North Braddock-the original steel city!) and of Carpatho-Rusyn (Austria-Hungary branch) / Slovak parents, and ‘apricot horns’ were THE treat at Christmas and Easter. Also made in nut, poppyseed, and once lekvar, all sweet fillings made at the time by a company ( Baker Brand) right in town on Sixth Street, in the next block down from the original home of Hagan Ice Cream. The best nut filling however was made with my grandmother’s recipe, of hand-ground ( twice_ wlanuts milk sugar and egghite, same ingredients also added to poppyseed soaked in milk. ( Now WHERE ‘s mum’s recipe collection…..)

By: Marie

Marie — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 19:09:36 +0000

We are Hungarian and this is the recipe we use for Kifli. Grandma used to make them by the hundreds when we were kids, always around Christmas time…we referred to them as Christmas Cookies back then. She did her own walnut & raisin filling, prune lekvar and poppyseed filling. I recently made them for the first time and they turned out beautifully. I make my own homemade apricot butter/lekvar and have a new favorite(Apricot). These are somewhat labor intensive but they are well worth the effort.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 02:13:22 +0000

My family has made these for years. Never does a Christmas go without many of these made. Our pastry is made with one pound butter, one pound cream cheese, and 5 cups flour, We fill them with Apricot filling, Lekvar, and a walnut filling. I have dough chilling right now and will be making some tonight and the rest tomorrow.

By: Holly L

Holly L — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 18:17:22 +0000

Oh m y gosh, thank you for posting this recipe! My late grandmother on my father’s side used to make cookies just like these and she was the type that never wrote anything down and just made them. She was of Russian and I believe Polish decent. I had been trying to track down these cookies for ages! She made apricot filled ones and the other was a filling similar to a nut roll almost, maybe fig so I had also been looking at the Kifli but I’m almost certain that this is the recipe! Thank you again!!!

By: Chris Hertel

Chris Hertel — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 13:24:50 +0000

We are from the Pittsburgh area, and there are many eastern European descendants here. We not only make kolaches for Christmas, but they are at all the weddings. My mother’s family is Czech. We make them square, as you have, and we fill them with nut filling (homemade), apricot filling (around here, you can get it at the grocery store in a big piping bag full!) and also poppyseed. I have made them round before, but square has less waste and less rolling! Yummy!

By: susan

susan — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 13:49:24 +0000

My mother was Serbo-Croat and I always thought Kolachys were from her background. This was a specialty of hers. She also made them with ground walnuts which was a favorite of my children’s. I’m making them for the first time, I guess in honor of my mom. Some things always stay with you of the person that is who was so instrumental in our upbringing. I hope I do as good a job as you did mom.

By: Colleen

Colleen — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 16:10:41 +0000

My great grandmother brought this recipe to our family from Hungary, she was from a German village in Vezsprem (we’re from NJ), we use the bow tie method. So much more work than your average cookie, but so worth it. Last year I tried substituting preserves with Solo filling and wasn’t happy with the result, they didn’t taste the same. This year I’m trying neufchatel cheese instead of cream cheese and we’ll see how that turns out. Important tips, use a non-stock rolling pin, don’t let the dough become room temperature, keep it chilled until you make your batch. Keep sprinkling flour if you find the dough hard to work with. I don’t use the pizza cutter, just a spatula to cut my squares from the flatly spread dough. Warning, once you make these cookies for people they will demand more, you are then tasked with baking these forever.

By: Betty

Betty — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 21:11:39 +0000

yum yum yum! I’m from Chicago and My Mom made these every Christmas. We called them Kolatchkies. I am definitely making these. I love your photos! Beautiful!

By: Janice

Janice — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 02:25:21 +0000

Well, I am Polish and couldn’t even begin to guess what the name of these cookies were, let alone where to begin looking for the recipe. Unfortunately, both of grandmother’s and my Mom have passed away. And there are no other relatives I could ask. So I went to “Google” and typed in “apricot blanket cookies”. Then I hit the “Images” tab and ‘lo and behold, there was a picture of exactly how I remembered these cookies to look! That is what brought me to your site. Thank you for the recipe. My sister should be impressed when I put these out at dessert time. We often comment on how unfortunate it was that most of our women relatives have passed on without leaving some sort of cookbook, recipe box or even a small notebook behind with their favorite recipes written down. There will be a lot of dishes we will miss, not even knowing the names of most of them. My Grandmother used to make this mushroom soup for Christmas Eve every year. I know she sent away for the mushrooms, but other than that , all I do remember is that it was a tomato based soup with a heavy pasta noodle and these weird mushrooms……

Again, thanks for the memories, and all the comments were definately worth my time too!

By: Maria

Maria — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 05:49:48 +0000

My Polish grandmother makes these, and everyone loves them. They are kolaczki–agreed, definitely not “some weird Chicago thing.” In my family, we always make them in this type of shape, but with crimped edges–and never round, though I have seen the round sort sold in stores. We actually have a kolaczki dough cutter we use for the proper shape.

By: Fran

Fran — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 20:21:47 +0000

Brings back great memories! My mother used to make these cookies with prune butter or apricot jam. She was of Croatian descent and everyone loved these cookies!