Dorie Greenspan's Rugelach Recipe

I love Rugelach. When I was going to work in person, I loved getting them from the bakery across the street. The cream cheese dough wasn’t hard to make and these were delicious right out of the oven. I made 2 types of filling with 1 batch of dough, and baked them at 17 min. After I rolled the filling, I treated these more as a slice and bake type of cookie so very easy to bake. 

A few things that I learned:

·        -After rolling the dough with the filling, you should set it in the fridge before cutting them. 

·        -I tried sprinkling with granulated sugar, and then also with sugar crystals. They browned more with the granulated sugar.

·       - Don’t cut them too thin. The 1 batch of dough made about 16 cookies.

Dorie Greenspan's Rugelach Recipe | Leite's Culinaria (leitesculinaria.com)

INGREDIENTS

For the dough

4 ounces cold cream cheese cut into 4 pieces

8 tablespoons cold unsalted butter cut into 4 pieces

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

For the filling

Traditional filling (I combined 1/3 cup raspberry jam, 1/3 cup chopped walnuts, and 1/3 cup mini chocolate chips)

2/3 cup raspberry jam, apricot jam, or marmalade

2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2/3 cup chopped nuts (I prefer pecans, but you can use walnuts or almonds)

1/4 cup plump, moist dried currants

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate finely chopped, or 2/3 cup store-bought mini chocolate chips

Babka Filling

5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

½ cup packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tablespoons all purpose flour

¼ teaspoon fine sea salt

For the glaze

1 large egg

1 teaspoon cold water

2 tablespoons sugar preferably decorating (coarse) sugar

 

DIRECTIONS

 Make the dough

Let the cream cheese and butter rest on the counter for 10 minutes—you want them to be slightly softened but still cool. Put the flour and salt in a food processor, scatter over the chunks of cream cheese and butter, and pulse the machine 6 to 10 times. Then process, scraping down the sides of the bowl often, just until the dough forms large curds—don't work it so long that it forms a ball on the blade.

Turn the dough out, gather it into a ball, and divide it in half. Shape each half into a disk, wrap the disks in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or up to 1 day.

Make the filling

Traditional filling

Heat the jam in a saucepan over low heat, or do this in a microwave, until it liquefies. Mix the sugar and cinnamon together.

Babka filling

Melted butter in microwave and combined all the ingredients together.

Make the cookies

Pull one packet of dough from the refrigerator. If it is too firm to roll easily, either leave it on the counter for about 10 minutes or give it a few bashes with your rolling pin.

On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into an 11-to-12-inch circle. Spoon (or brush) a thin gloss of jam over the dough and sprinkle with half of the cinnamon sugar. Scatter half of the nuts, half of the currants, and half of the chopped chocolate over the dough. Cover the filling with a piece of wax paper and gently press the filling into the dough, then remove the paper and save it for the next batch.

Using a pizza wheel or a sharp knife, cut the dough into 16 wedges, or triangles. (The easiest way to do this is to cut the dough into quarters, then to cut each quarter into 4 triangles.) Starting at the base of each triangle, roll the dough up so that each cookie becomes a little crescent. Arrange the roll-ups on one baking sheet, making sure the points are tucked under the cookies and refrigerate.

Repeat with the second packet of dough, and refrigerate the cookies for at least 30 minutes before baking.

Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the glaze

Stir the egg and water together, and brush a bit of this glaze over each rugelach. Sprinkle the cookies with sugar.

Bake the cookies for 20 to 25 minutes, rotating the sheets from top to bottom and front to back at the midway point, until they are puffed and golden. Move the cookies to racks to cool to just warm or to room temperature. (I baked them 17 min and did not rotate. Watch the cookies with the babka filling more closely because those might be more likely to burn)