cook this: 3 polish baking recipes from dobre dobre, including twisted kraków bagels

by laura brehaut

published may 29, 2026

16 minute read

join the conversation

16 minute read

join the conversation

clockwise from top left: author laurel kratochvila, twisted kraków bagels, sour cherry and salty sheep's cheese danishes, and loaded potato knishes. photos by malgosia minta

our cookbook of the week is dobre dobre: baking from poland and beyond by laurel kratochvila.

jump to the recipes: twisted kraków bagels, loaded potato knishes, and sour cherry and salty sheep’s cheese danishes.

a quest for pickles took laurel kratochvila across the border from the czech republic into poland. but it was her first bite of chałka, a braided egg bread, that ended up sending her on a polish baking journey. “it was very much an aha moment, both just in terms of pure excitement over delicious food, but also in making a connection in my own childhood pastry consumption and bringing something a little full circle,” says the american-born, france-trained, berlin-based baker and cookbook author.

tucking into the golden braid brought kratochvila back to the challah she had grown up eating, made by jewish bakeries in boston. she immediately sensed the link between the loaf and her own jewish heritage — and the challah her great-grandparents had baked in a village outside of warsaw.

since that first trip in 2009, kratochvila has immersed herself in polish baking culture. “in a way, i’ve been researching this book for almost 17 years,” she says of her second cookbook, dobre dobre.

while writing her debut, new european baking (2022), she and photographer malgosia minta found themselves returning to poland. kratochvila often gives talks at the polin museum of the history of polish jews in warsaw and has many baking colleagues there. it felt natural to do a deep dive on the country’s baking culture, and in dobre dobre, kratochvila does just that. “i hate this phrase, because people say this about cookbooks, but it was a bit of a love letter. i am a sap for polish baking.”

dobre dobre is laurel kratochvila’s second cookbook. chronicle

this conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

your love for polish baking, your deep knowledge of it, and the connections you’ve made really come through in the book.

i’m very lucky to know so many bakers in poland, because that helped facilitate writing the book, and i wanted to include their stories. i couldn’t include everybody, but i featured a few of my favourite bakers and my favourite projects.

i had a chef in paris who always said, “bakery is a team sport,” and i really believe that. none of us knows everything, and we’re always learning from each other. even a real novice can teach you something. so, because baking is so collaborative, i like talking about other people in my writing.

it’s nice how you show not just how polish baking is expressed in poland but also in the diaspora.

that was essential for me. that was definitely a sticking point when i started to write the book. in part because i had seen a lot of european cookbooks or eastern european cookbooks that missed the jewish diaspora. that isn’t to throw shade or anything. but especially with a country like poland, where, before the war, 10 per cent of the population was jewish, in major urban centres, like warsaw, 30 per cent of the population would be jewish.

there isn’t an exact number on jewish representation in the bakery world, but there’s speculation that it could have been up to 50 per cent of bakers in poland. there were towns in poland where all the bakeries were jewish. because that’s no longer there, but it does exist outside of poland, in a way, i would be telling a very incomplete story, and i would be being very inauthentic to myself if i didn’t talk about the diaspora — both the jewish diaspora and the polish diaspora.

you put it so well in the book, too. whether people recognize it or not, the jewish community was the biggest influence on polish baking today.

absolutely, and there are traces everywhere. before the war, the overlap of the baking culture was so complete that you couldn’t disentangle it. and very often, it is kind of silly to say, “oh, this is a jewish thing. this is a polish thing,” because it was all of a place. sometimes it’s only in diaspora that something becomes identifiably jewish.

there were a lot of things that i grew up thinking, “oh, this is purely a jewish thing.” and then when i started going to poland, i realized, “no, no, no. this is everywhere there.” rugelach are a great example of that. there were a lot of discoveries like that.

what excites you most about the baking scene in poland today?

what excites me most is what excites me most about a lot of contemporary baking scenes, which is a return to a certain kind of food values with local grains and local milling. in the bread world, you do have that very scandinavian sourdough influence, but polish baking has always been very rye- and sourdough-oriented. so, when you apply the principles of, “ok, we’re not going to use factory flour. we’re going to use something local,” you have wonderful results.

and i suppose the same in terms of everything’s homemade, getting rid of industrial fillings that became popular during communism, and using what’s seasonal. one thing i love so much about bakeries in poland is the use of seasonal fruit. so, on the one hand, it’s about maintaining tradition, but also about digging into food origins and craft.

what was most important for you to communicate about polish baking in the book?

it’s going to sound so cheesy, but i wanted to communicate what a great baking tradition it is. i feel like france gets all the credit, and i could have written that book, but it’s been written a million times before. i wanted to communicate how exciting the whole gamut, the whole canon of polish baking is, and get other people into it who might not know or who might have that history, so they can reach into it and touch it.

twisted krakÓw bagels

“this is really the only bagel that you still see in poland, in part because this wasn’t a jewish bagel,” laurel kratochvila says of twisted kraków bagels (obwarzanki). laurel kratochvila

obwarzanki

makes: 12 obwarzanki

dough:
5 1/2 cups plus 2 tbsp (700 g) bread flour
2 1/4 tsp (7 g) instant yeast
2 tsp (12 g) kosher salt
1 1/2 tbsp (30 g) honey
1 2/3 cups (400 g) lukewarm water

for boiling:
4 1/2 cups (1 l) water
2 tbsp (40 g) kosher salt
2 tbsp (42 g) honey

topping:
sesame seeds, poppy seeds or nigella seeds

step 1

begin by mixing the dough. in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, mix the flour, yeast, salt, honey and water on low speed for 10 minutes, until a medium-stiff and smooth dough forms. remove from the mixer and give it another few minutes of kneading by hand. form the dough into a ball, cover with a damp tea towel on your work surface, and allow to rise for 45 minutes, or until the dough has grown by almost two thirds in size.

step 2

once the dough has risen, preshape the dough. divide the dough with a bench knife into 24 even portions of about 1 3/4 oz (50 g) each. form each portion into a tight ball. cover the balls with plastic wrap or a damp tea towel and allow to rest for 15 minutes.

step 3

line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside. once the dough has rested, shape the bagels. form the balls into logs and roll out into 10 in (25 cm) strands.

step 4

to form the obwarzanki, lay two strands touching lengthwise side-by-side on the unfloured work surface. put your hands on each end of the strands and move the left hand down and the right hand up to give the strands the signature twist. move the right side clockwise and the left side counterclockwise to meet in a ring — the direction is important as to not unwind the twist! overlap the two ends of the twist by about 1 in (2.5 cm), then tuck and pinch together well. set on a lined baking sheet and repeat for the remaining dough. the obwarzanki should be spaced at least 1 in (2.5 cm) apart. cover the sheets loosely with plastic wrap or a plastic bag, then refrigerate for 12 to 18 hours overnight. your fridge settings should be low, between 37 and 41f (3 and 5c).

step 5

the next morning, preheat the oven to 425f (220c) with the convection setting turned on. combine the water, salt and honey in a medium saucepan, adding more water if needed to make sure it is at least 4 in (10 cm) deep. bring to a boil, and boil each obwarzanek for 1 minute, or until slightly puffed, flipping halfway with a slotted spatula. remove from the water and allow each obwarzanek to drain over the pot before placing it back onto the baking sheet lined with parchment paper, 1 in (2.5 cm) apart. top with any seeds immediately after removing from water — that’s when they’re stickiest! bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

step 6

serve immediately or let cool and store in the freezer in an airtight plastic bag with the air sucked out for up to 2 months. when you’d like to eat them, thaw, then toast.

note: all the hard work in this recipe starts the night before. the long fermentation means a more complex and delicious flavour profile. the final boil-and-bake is minimal effort for a hot breakfast.

loaded potato knishes

“that’s just pure comfort food,” laurel kratochvila says of her loaded potato knishes. malgosia minta

knysze ziemniaczane

makes: 18 medium knishes

dough:
3 cups (375 g) all-purpose flour
1 tsp double-acting baking powder (such as magic baking powder)
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/3 cup (75 g) sunflower oil or any neutral oil
1 egg
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp (150 g) room-temperature water
1 tsp dark soy sauce or tamari

filling:
3 lb 5 oz (1.5 kg) small to medium potatoes (waxy varieties work well here)
3 to 4 tbsp (45 to 60 g) olive oil
3 or 4 medium yellow onions, halved and cut into thin strings (3 cups/325 g)
1 garlic clove, finely diced
1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp ground black pepper
2 tsp red wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar
14 oz (400 g) full-fat sour cream
1 3/4 cups (150 g) shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 cup (10 g) chopped flat-leaf parsley

egg wash:
1 egg, beaten