In Texas there are many ways to enjoy breakfast, but there are none quite as cherished as the kolache.
“Anyone that has spent time in Texas and been exposed to kolaches has fallen in love,” says seven-generation Texan and award-winning cookbook author Lisa Fain.
By the early 1900s more than 9,000 Czech people had immigrated to Texas. They brought with them recipes for koláč—hand-sized circles of yeasty baked dough, imbued with fillings like apricot, prune, and sweetened soft cheeses. Kolaches soon became interwoven with Texas’ culinary tapestry, and bakeries popped up throughout Central and West Texas. Over time, bakeries began crafting their own interpretations of the pastry, and the concept of kolaches continues to spark lively debate in Texas.
For Houstonians, enamored with the kolaches from longtime city favorite Shipley Do-Nuts, the ideal version of the pastry is what most Czech Americans refer to as a klobasnek, which looks more like pigs in a blanket: sausage (traditionally kielbasa) draped with melted cheese, nestled entirely in a warm, doughy wrapping. Many in the Czech community, however, consider true kolaches to be the yeasty, doughy round pastries filled with various fruit jams, poppyseed, and cream or cottage cheese. Most Texans across the state, particularly Houstonians, use the term interchangeably to refer to a variety of pastries spanning the spectrum of klobasnek and kolache, which are filled with an increasingly wide array of of sweet and savory fillings, such as crawfish etouffee (as they are at Koala Kolache), and halal butter chicken and smoked brisket (as you might find at Karma Kolache).
The pastry’s long history inspired Texas native Emily Stone, a pastry chef and owner of Bexar Kolaches in San Antonio. Stone pays homage to the original roots of kolaches, listing the pastry’s biography on a colorful wall in the bakery and maintaining close ties with classic Texas bakeries like the Czech Stop in West and Weikel's Bakery in La Grange, which are known for their preservation of Czech heritage. At Bexar Kolaches, guests will find both the sausage and cheese and fruit kolaches that are commonly served throughout the state. But Stone also channels the energy found in the city around her, and honors San Antonio’s rich Mexican American culture at the bakery. She celebrates the fruterías and mangonada found throughout the city through sweet kolaches permeated with the fruity flavors.
“I love the specificity of San Antonio culture,” says Stone. “It's really fun to celebrate it in new ways that I haven't seen in other places.”
A lifelong baker, Stone launched Bexar Kolaches in December 2020 after noticing a lack of kolache bakeries in the city. A Czech college roommate (and some subsequent road trips across Texas as an adult) introduced her to the fruit- and cream cheese-filled pastries in Central and West Texas, and the sausage and cheese kolaches that have come to define Houston’s kolache culture. She spent ten days in the Czech Republic researching kolaches, where she encountered flavors like prune and poppy seed—now mainstays of her otherwise rotating menu. Stone, who holds a Ph.D. in anthropology, aims to provide a new template for modern and culturally expansive interpretation of the doughy treat.
