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Kolacky or Tarts and Raised Fried Cakes

A layered pastry made from butter dough and raised dough, filled with a sweet mixture, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Kolacky or Tarts and Raised Fried Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Dissolve compressed yeast in warm milk with sugar.

  2. Sift flour.

  3. Rub half of the flour with butter until smooth.

  4. Set aside in a cool place.

  5. Mix warm milk, beaten yolks, raised yeast, remaining flour, salt, and mace.

  6. Cover and let rise in a warm place.

Laminate and shape

  1. Roll out both doughs separately.

  2. Place butter dough on raised dough.

  3. Fold lengthwise three times.

  4. Pound down.

  5. Let rise.

  6. Fold crosswise three times.

  7. Pound down again.

  8. Let rise.

  9. Repeat lengthwise and crosswise once more.

  10. Roll out.

  11. Cut into squares.

  12. Place filling in each square.

  13. Bring corners together.

  14. Pinch tight.

  15. Let rise.

Finish and bake

  1. Brush with beaten egg.

  2. Sprinkle with chopped almonds.

  3. Bake.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the gluten structure that gives the dough its body and layers.
Butter
Creates flaky layers and tenderness when folded into the dough.
Yeast (in the method)
Produces gas that makes the dough rise and become light.
Egg yolks
Add richness and tenderness and help the dough brown.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and helps form a soft, pliable dough.

The step that matters

Rolling and folding the dough. Folding the butter dough into the raised dough in repeated layers creates flakiness. Letting each fold rise and keeping the dough cool enough keeps the butter from melting into the dough, which would make it greasy rather than layered.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, flour, butter, egg, almond):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, flour, butter, egg, almond. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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