Kołacz

Kołacz (Polish pronunciation: [ˈkɔwat͡ʂ]) meaning cake, wheel cake, or coffee cake (variously transliterated as kolach, kolachky, kolacky, kolachy, from Polish:Koło: "disk") is a traditional Polish pastry, originally a wedding cake dating to the start of the 13th century, that has made its way into American homes around the Christmas and Easter holidays. The pastry is a light and flaky dough filled with a variety of sweet and savory fillings such as apricot, raspberry, prune, sweet cheese, poppy seed or even a nut mixture. Variants of the traditional Slavic pastry have found entrance into many Central and Eastern European cuisines, e.g. the Czech leven yeast dough called kolache (koláč). When the dough and filling mixture is rolled it is also known as a makowiec, makownik, poteca, strucla z makiem (poppy seed strusel), strucla orzechowa (walnut strusel), strucla z migdalowa (almonds strusel). In Hungarian this is called, Diós-mákos Beigli or Bejgli. Some sprinkle the roll with poppy seeds or powdered sugar on top and can be baked in a circular pan or long-ways in a jelly pan like a log.