HOMEMADE CZECH SWEET PASTRY FRGALE (KOLAC)
This sweet dough pastry/pie called frgale is Czech specialty coming from North-East of the Czech Republic. It's filled often with sweet dry pressed cottage cheese, plum jam or poppy seed mixture. Cut in pieces like pizza makes this delicious Czech sweet pastry a real specialty.
Servings: 3 large pies
Calories: 382kcal
Equipment
- Large kitchen bowl
- baking sheet
- Roller pin
- Parchment paper
Ingredients
Yeast starter
- 2 1/4 tsp dry yeast
- 1/3 cup (80 ml) warm milk
- 1 tsp granulated sugar
Sweet dough
- 1/2 cup (125 g) butter (room temperature)
- 2/3 cup (75 g) sugar
- 2 large egg yolks
- 2 cups (500 g) all-purpose flour
- zest from one medium lemon
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup (250 ml) warm milk
Pressed cottage cheese filling
- 2 cups (500 g) pressed cottage cheese
- 5 tbsp confectioner (icing) sugar
- 2 large egg yolks
- 3 1/2 Tbsp (50 g) soft butter (room temperature)
- 1 tbsp dark rum
Plum jam filling
- 1 & 1/2 cup (375 ml) plum jam or butter (lekvar)
- 1/3 cup (80 ml) dark rum
Poppy seed filling
- 1 & 1/2 cup (200 g) poppy seeds (ground)
- 2 tbsp plum jam
- 1/3 cup (80 ml) warm milk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/4 cup (60 g) granulated sugar
Streusel topping
- 1 & 1/2 cup (360 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 & 1/2 cup (360 g) confectioner (icing) sugar
- 3/4 cup (180 g) soft butter (room temperature)
Eggwash
- 1 large egg
- 1/3 cup (80 ml) warm milk
Instructions
For the sweet dough
- In a small bowl combine dry yeast, 1 tsp of fine sugar and warm milk. Cover with plastic food wrap and let rise for 10 minutes. This yeast started must double in size.
- In a large mixing bowl of standing mixer, combine room temperature butter, sugar and egg yolks. Mix with flat beater attachment, until creamy & fluffy (about 2 minutes). Add yeast starter and mix it in.
- In another bowl combine all-purpose flour, salt and zest from one lemon. Change the flat beater attachment for dough hook attachment and alternatively add mixture of flour and warm milk into the batter. Add it slowly; spoon by spoon, do not rush and make sure every time the flour & milk gets well incorporated.
- At the end the batter will become lightly sticky inside, but do not stick on the surface to the bowl. If the dough is too sticky, add slowly more flour and if it’s too hard, add little of warm milk or melted butter. The dough has to be soft and pliable. Remove the dough hook attachment and sprinkle the dough with 1 extra spoon of flour. Cover with clean cloth or plastic food wrap and let rise the dough in warm place (no draft) for 2 hours.
- When the dough had doubled in its size, sprinkle a bit of a flour on clean working surface and place the dough on it. Cut it in 3 equal pieces.
- Take a large piece of parchment paper, big enough to cover regular baking cookie sheet, and place 1 piece of dough on it. Sprinkle the dough with flour and roll thin round shape pie (pizza looking like) in diameter of 35 cm (14″ inches).
- Fill the round cake with dry pressed cottage cheese filling, we reserved earlier and leave about 2 cm (3/4 inch) space on the edges. Roll the edges lightly inside, toward the filling, to secure the filling. Repeat the same process with the other 2 pieces of dough and fill them with plum jam and poppy seed mixture. (if you do not have any above fillings, you can use other sort of jams or make more of cottage cheese filling)
- Generously sprinkle the frgal cake with streusel, you made earlier. And place the frgal with parchment paper onto the baking sheet. Let it prove again for another 20 minutes.
- Meanwhile, the frgal is on its second proving time, place the oven rack in middle position and preheat the oven to 180 C / 356 F.
- Before you place the frgal into the oven, brush the edges with whisked whole egg & milk. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until the edges turns golden brown.
- Remove carefully from the oven and leave it on the baking sheet for another 10 minutes to cool it down. Continue baking the other 2 pies.
- Cut the frgal in triangles, like you are cutting pizza and enjoy it!
Dry pressed cottage cheese filling
- With hand mixer, mix together dry pressed cottage cheese, sugar, egg yolks, melted butter and rum. Once the cottage cheese filling is ready, cover it with plastic foil and reserve it in refrigerator for later.
Plum jam filling
- Place plum jam and rum in medium bowl and mash it with fork. If the plum jam is too thick, use 1 or 2 tbsp of boiling water to thin it out.
Poppy seed filling
- In a small sauce pan, reheat milk with vanilla extract and sugar. Once the milk starts to simmer, add ground poppy seeds and cook for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove it from heat and let this mixture to cool down.
- Meanwhile, in another small sauce pan, melt butter and add flour to stir. Cook the butter with flour on medium high heat for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in all the other ingredients; poppy seed mixture, rum, plum jam & combine it well.
Streusel topping
- In a small plate or bowl, crumble in between your hands mixture of flour, sugar and butter (room temperature) to prepare streusel topping.
Notes
- The dough might be sticky when rolling it, so it's very important to cover your hands in flour every time you will manipulate the dough.
- Use parchment paper to roll out the dough, otherwise the dough will tear up while transferring it on baking sheet. It does not have same elasticity as pizza dough.
- For the fillings: These three fillings are exact measurements for 3 different frgals. So if you decide not to use one of these filling, make sure to make double portion of the other 2 fillings. You can also use different fillings, such as blueberry or pear jam.
- Be patient with the dough, it needs lots of time proving, but it's really worth the fluffiness of delicious pie!