As temperatures start to drop all kinds of outdoor events spring up all around Texas. The Texas Kolache Festival is one of them.
(Click on the picture to see it full size, use a back button to return to this spot.) It is located in a country seat about one hour drive northwest of Houston and I have been planning to go and have a look for some time. Unfortunately the day of the festival was overcast with occasional light rain. But hoping that as we move away from the coast the weather will improve we headed out anyway. Actually, the weather got worse the further north we drove.

One is never certain how big these events are going to be. This one turned out to be quite large, in spite of the rain. The whole center of the town was blocked off and filled with close to a hundred stalls with people selling various gift items, food and drink. Most of this was a pretty standard fare, the stall owners travelling the country from town fair to town fair. But, there was a large section dedicated to professional bakeries from all over Texas, competing in kolache baking. Some have decided to individually wrap them in plastic and we stayed away from those. However, there were enough shops with fresh looking products and we sampled quite a few. It was interesting to see the variations from bakery to bakery, modification of the original recipe in more than 100 years.

The schedule also called for several polka bands to be present but because everything was open air the performances were canceled – difficult to play in the rain. Next year we will have to go again and arrive earlier, so that we can see the judged competition (amateur and professional) as well as the kolache eating contest.

In reality, while good the Texas kolaches are a little too fluffy for my taste. Not sure if that is a result of drift over the years or if the originals coming from Moravia are in fact supposed to taste like this. As luck would have it, the following week we flew to Montreal, where the whole family had a chance to learn from the master and make Czech kolace which had the appropriate bite to them. After returning to Houston we practiced and the results were very satisfying even though not very long lasting. We also tried a new recipe for standard Czech rohliky and I would say they turned out 90% of what I remember from my childhood. Then again, my memory may have drifted and this is as good as it gets. In any case, they did not last long either.