Wife and I have tried numerous times to make kolaches and the dough is not turning out. Have done different recipes and same result. The dough is always dense.

How do we get the light fluffy dough you find the other places? What are we doing wrong?

The key is using the right kind of Czech sausage

A guy I used to work with had an interesting story about making dough. His sister and mom asked their Czech grandmother to show them how she made kolache and the grandmother didn't really have a recipe or method per se, she just did it like she always had.

When asked how long to knead the dough, grandma just said "until it is shiny"

I've attempted making my own a couple of times and thought of this anecdote as I was working the dough. After a while, you just look down and think, I'll be damned, it's shiny. I'm sure this is due to working it long enough to raise the temperature to the point that the butter is melting to make it this way, but I just like grandma's answer.

I said Kolache. Fruit. No sausage in these.

Look, I just said Kolache for the fruit ones.

Just looking for help on some dough that works with these type kolaches.

That's the beauty of the recipe I posted. Works great for a Sausage Kolach as well as fruit.

I will give it a try. Your recipes are generally legit.

It's just been hell at work and just need something to go right.

Are you using enough yeast? Generally, if dough comes out too dense, you're not kneading it enough or it isn't rising enough, I.e. too much flour and not enough yeast.

A dough that is too dry will often make for a denser bread. So there's a chance you're adding too much flour later on in the shaping and kneading process. The kolache recipe I use (my great-grandmothers) is very "wet". It has enough water and fat to keep it from becoming too dense. In fact, it gets kneaded with a wooden hatchet handle and sticks to it like crazy. When it comes to portioning the dough, they get rolled in a little flour just to shape them. They always have a good chew but aren't dense.

Care to share that recipe as well. I might give both a try again this week.

I would, but I don't have it handy. It's almost identical to Fido's except that our recipe uses melted butter instead of oil.

Maybe one of these days Fido will take the 3 minutes to type that up so I don't need a Drogans decoder wheel every time I see it.

I actually use meted Crisco when I make them. I may try a half and half with butter next go round.

That recipe was written out by a grandma in her upper 90's. I can hear her voice when I'm looking that over. No way I'm typing it up