By Elizabeth Brannon
28 years ago, Kay and her husband Kim came to the U.S. from South Korea. Kim is 68 and Kay is 60.
Kay worked in a flower shop in the morning, learning about flower arranging and matching colors. She cooked in the afternoon. Kim worked for a bakery. From those first jobs, their donut business started.
They opened Kay and Kim Donut in Oklahoma and were fortunate enough to be mentioned in a travel guide, which led to their very successful business. They were used to long lines of customers, stretched out the door, waiting to purchase melt-in-your-mouth donuts. Some customers drove two hours to get to their shop. After 20 years of success, Kay and Kim retired, but quickly realized they missed working and missed their customers. They were asked to open a shop in the Dallas area. Lucky for us, they relocated to our lovely area and about a year ago, opened Kolache Donuts Bakery, 2930 Justin Rd. #400 Highland Village.
To view the incredible, edible art, check their FB page, select Photos, and marvel at many of the custom designs they’ve created: www.facebook.com/KolacheDonutsBakery.
The process starts with Kay listening to her customers and understanding what they want. Her photographic memory coupled with the research she does on the internet gives her insight into how to create works of art out of light and airy donuts.
After Kay knows the plan, Kim draws the idea, works to produce pretty shapes and designs, then crafts a metal cutter. From there, they both work hard to create edible art, and only Kay and Kim do the cooking. They ensure the right amount of humidity in the cooking process and cook at an exact temperature. Once the shaped donuts are ready, Kay takes over with her colors and decorations.
Kay uses a top-quality icing that’s very smooth and easy to work with. Kay mixes her own icing, offering almost any color a customer would want, including calm and cheerful colors and even tie dye icing. She also talks about boy colors, girl colors and ‘tomboy colors,’ all as ordered by her customers.
The icing keeps, so she can use many colors for her creations. The icing comes in flavors like chocolate, strawberry and maple. The shop also offers a light and flavorful glaze. The tiny decorations are done with a pastry bag and very special piping bags. Her wedding projects are the most delicate and elegant, and need her master skills, creative flair and very tiny pastry bags.
Kay can create these custom works of art very quickly. The icing on a donut takes about 5 minutes to set and the decorations take another 10 minutes. Kay can create any design to support a theme or motif of hobbies, cartoons, movies, sports, holidays, family, flowers, superheroes, school, characters, graduations, births, birthdays, beach or pool themes, library themes, and alphabet donuts to write messages and sentences. Kay can create stripes, polka dots, flowers, faces – anything the customer wants. Kay and Kim are fearless – they will try to create any design and any theme.
Kay says making and keeping her customers happy is her job and is like a vitamin for her. She works hard and long hours and is tired but joyful and the end of a day. Her customers are like family to her.
Besides the custom donuts, Kay loves the aroma of the kolaches baking. Their kolache dough is soft, like a dinner roll. Her Kolache mix is actually a secret recipe with a very specific cooking temperature that results in a best quality, taste and eating experience. She has 16 different kolache flavors (apricot, blueberry, cherry, poppyseed, Bavarian cream, cheese, raspberry, strawberry, peach, apple, lemon, coconut, chocolate, pineapple, strawberry cream cheese and blueberry cream cheese.) To complete the bakery items, they also offer cookies, cinnamon rolls and several varieties of sausage rolls.
What they have left at the end of the day, they donate to charitable organizations.
They don’t do delivery in order to maintain the high quality of what they make. Their products are well made and priced fairly. Consider trying their unique and artistic treats the next time you have to be an inspired hero responsible for breakfast, snacks or dessert.
Highlights of art news for the Town of Flower Mound include:
- Chalk the Walk event – November 2020
- A baseball themed mural at Gerault Park starting this month and finishing in October
- Scavenger Hunt this month: flower-mound.com/1908/Scavenger-Hunt-Challenges
- State Senator Jane Nelson shared her longtime support of the arts on her FB page: facebook.com/SenatorJaneNelson
- a-la-cART Challenge flower-mound.com/1821/Art-and-Cultural-News-and-Events
- New August Art Treasure hunt
- To read about these and other arts projects and events go to the Flower Mound Arts Facebook page: facebook.com/FlowerMoundArts or the Town Arts and Cultural News and Events page: www.flower-mound.com/1821/Art-and-Cultural-News-and-Events
Art Thoughts: “It’s all about a balancing act between time, temperature and ingredients: That’s the art of baking.” – Peter Reinhart
Elizabeth Brannon serves on the Flower Mound Cultural Arts Commission.
