My friend, Danusia, is originally from Poland, and came to Nashville by way of NY and Florida. She and her husband Bill came to dinner one day and she brought a LARGE bowl of these little irresistible pastries: Kolacky. Or Kolache. She said her mom made these all her life (a Polish recipe) but Danusia found the exact same recipe on Kroger’s website.

That night we all enjoyed the lovely dessert but there were so many (and so therefore leftovers), which didn’t last long since I single-handedly ate the rest by the end of the next day. Read: they’re SO good.

After some months passed without them I felt the need to re-create the yum and searched for the Kroger recipe. And found it. The tiny pastries have a cream cheese dough, soft and pliable. And the only other thing you need is jam.

The recipe below is a close version of Kroger’s since I can’t help but tinker.

And then I made a batch in chocolate. (Anything good, is also good in chocolate.)

Bake these. They last for days (if you don’t polish them all off first). And they are capable of providing infinite delight.

Kolacky Pastries

For the cream cheese dough:

2 ounces cream cheese

1/2 stick unsalted butter

1/2 cup flour

pinch salt

For the chocolate cream cheese dough:

2 ounces cream cheese

1/2 stick unsalted butter

1/2 cup flour

pinch salt

1/4 cup cocoa

2 teaspoons sugar

Filling/Topping:

1/2 cup jam strawberry, apricot, orange, or your favorite

1/4 cup powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Pulse the ingredients for each dough separately in a food processor until large dough curds form. Pull together dough and  knead a little, then flatten into a disk, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for an hour or 2 or overnight.

Roll each dough out separately (working with one disk of dough at a time) to about 1/8” thick. Using a 1-1/2 inch or 2-inch square cutter, cut out squares from the rolled out dough. Place a 1/2 teaspoon of jam in the center, Pinch together two opposite corners of the dough squares and fold slightly, pinching to close (so the dough stays together). Repeat with all the dough. Bake on a parchment-lined sheet pan for 20 minutes until lightly golden. Let cool completely before dusting lightly with powdered sugar.