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Cooking
Apricot Kolaches with Curd Cheese Filling and Almond Crumble
· 15 servings
Mix the dry ingredients
Sift the flour with a pinch of salt into a large bowl. Add the caster sugar, dried yeast and grated lemon zest, then mix everything together while still dry.
Add the wet ingredients
Make a well in the mixture and pour in the lukewarm milk. Add the room-temperature egg yolks and the lukewarm melted butter.
Work the dough
Bring everything together and knead thoroughly. Using a stand mixer with the dough hook, knead for about 13 minutes on medium speed. The dough should be smooth, elastic, and should not stick to the sides of the bowl.
Let it rise
Lightly grease the dough and bowl with oil, cover with a tea towel, and leave in a warm place to rise for 1 to 1.5 hours, until doubled in size.
Shape into balls
Turn the risen dough out onto a work surface and divide into 15 equal pieces (about 60 g each, or a bit smaller at 45–50 g). Roll each piece into a smooth ball between your palms and arrange on baking trays lined with parchment paper, leaving space between them.
Let rise a second time
Loosely cover the balls on the trays with a tea towel and leave to rest for an hour. This makes it easy to shape a thin centre afterwards.
Mix the curd cheese filling
In a bowl, combine the curd cheese, ricotta, egg yolks, icing sugar, vanilla sugar and cornflour. Whisk until you have a smooth, creamy mixture.
Make the buttery crumble
Put the flour, sugar and cold butter, cut into cubes, into a bowl. Add the flaked almonds and cinnamon. Rub everything together with your fingers until you get buttery crumbs.
Prepare the apricots
Stone the apricots and cut into wedges or quarters. If they're on the tart side, dust them lightly with a little sugar.
Shape the wells
Preheat the oven to 180 °C (top and bottom heat). Once the balls have relaxed, press the centres down with your fingers or the base of a floured glass until almost paper-thin, leaving just a puffy border about 1 cm wide.
Fill the kolaches
Brush the borders with beaten egg. Spoon a portion of the curd cheese filling into the middle and spread it over the thin centre. Arrange the apricots on top of the curd cheese, then cover generously with the crumble.
Bake until golden
Place the trays in the oven and bake for about 15–20 minutes. Keep an eye on them — they're ready as soon as the edges turn golden and the crumble starts to turn crisp.
Brush with Amaretto butter
While the kolaches are still hot, brush the edges with melted butter mixed with a splash of Amaretto. Let them sit for a moment to soak in, then serve.