WARREN — In the Mahoning Valley, passing on family traditions often refers to recipes.

Jackie (Makosky) Brown of Champion is the fourth generation of the Makosky family to make kolachi or nut roll, a rolled pastry made with a variety of fillings.

Traditionally, kolachi contains walnuts or fruit, most often apricot or lekvar, a dried fruit butter often made of prunes.

Brown, a 2013 graduate of Champion High School, is owner of Doughlicious Bakery on East Market Street in Warren, which specializes in kolachi.

“My great-grandma, Teresa Sedlak, was born in Barca, Slovakia, in 1904,” Brown said. “She moved to the United States and married my great-grandfather, Joe Makosky, and they raised 10 children in Campbell. She brought the kolachi recipe with her from her family in Slovakia.”

The dessert was usually made for the Christmas and Easter holidays and was passed on to Teresa and Joe’s children.

“My grandpa, John Makosky Sr., was their ninth born child. He married Rose Frazzini. She offered her Italian baking style to the mix of creating our memorable kolachi,” she said.

Rose and John’s kolachi became so popular that they began to sell it out of their home to friends, family and church members.

“They made their nut rolls as gifts for the holidays,” Brown said. “Each year, they were able to give their six children, 28 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren Christmas gifts from the kolachi sales. It wasn’t a business or means of making a living for them. They just loved to bake together.”

As a result of the volume being made, they needed a designated space for kolachi dough rolling.

“My dad, Joe Makosky, and my grandpa built this table that I have in the bakery dining room and I am still using it today to roll kolachi in an assembly line,” she said.

The youngest of Joe and Judy (Peterson) Makosky’s five children, Brown said she relished the time as a toddler, spent on her Grandma Rose’s lap learning and helping to make kolachi.

“I have fun memories growing up, getting to put on an apron and being allowed to do bits and pieces of the process. Helping my grandparents always seemed like a privilege. They asked me to be a baker’s assistant when they started getting more people spreading the word and giving them as gifts,” she recalled.

A third-generation Makosky showed Brown that she could have her own bakery.

“My Aunt Vikki started her baking business after her mother and father passed away almost 10 years ago. She saw the demand in the market for the kolachi,” she said.

Though Brown enjoyed helping to keep the family recipe alive, she was working in another field.

“I was a general manager of a local fitness center for several years,” she said. “I got a lot of experience there running a profitable business and forming long term relationships.”

Life changes and the wish to continue a family recipe caused a career pivot for Brown.

“I got married in 2018 and we welcomed our son, Sylvester, in 2019,” she said. “I resigned from my position at the fitness center in 2021 with the hope to raise our son from home and to be able to have self-income. We found out that I was pregnant with our daughter on my last day of work in 2022.”

Since her Aunt Vikki had been running her own bakery, she was the person who Brown turned to for advice about starting her own establishment.

“I discussed with her options to start my own business and keep the recipe,” Brown said. “She has agreed to help any way that she can but she hopes to semi-retire. She likes to tell her loyal customers who ask her if she is still baking, ‘I can’t keep my hands out of the dough.”

Doughlicious Bakery was created on Feb. 22, 2022.

“I started my baking business in hopes to keep kolachi a valley tradition. My passion project is well underway with having a brick and mortar where people around the nation can come and ‘feel home.'”

She had a plan when she initially decided to open the bakery.

“My hopes for starting a family business is to have this passed on to my children to run or just to have it in their name when I am ready to sit back and reap from the building’s profits,” she said. “They are so young that I have no idea how ambitious or driven they will be in a career field, but I want them to grow up knowing they can have a big part of running the business if they want it.”

Brown has plans for the future of the bakery, which includes classes to teach others how to make kolachi. They would be able to take their pastry home similar to a sip and paint session. She wants kolachi to be more than just a twice a year holiday treat but also for graduations, wedding cookie tables and parties. She has space at Doughlicious Bakery for small showers or other gatherings that would feature the dessert.

“It was one of my grandma Rose’s dying wishes that her kolachi recipe be continued,” Brown said. “In 2016, she wanted to make sure her customers got their Christmas kolachi. She passed away the day after Christmas knowing that my grandpa would continue to make it in the years he survived her. It was also important to him. It is in their honor that I wish to keep their legendary recipe available to anyone that craves it.”

To suggest a Saturday profile, contact Metro Editor Marly Reichert at mreichert@tribtoday.com.