Kitchen Wizardry - Rugelach

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After rolling the rugelach.

My family and I love rugelach. For those of you who are not familiar with this delicacy, Wikipedia defines it as "a Jewish pastry of Ashkenazic origin". It is essentially a crecent shaped pastry made of cheese dough and filled with fruit preserves. I've been buying them at Costco for years but in recent months the price of the rugelach has gone up and the quantity has gone down so I decided to see if I could make some of my own.

After adding the cinnamon sugar topping.

I found a recipe online here that appeared to be simple enough and I decided to give it a go. It was quite the  experience and I learned a few things. First thing I learned was not to make rugelach in the summer. Because of the high cream cheese and butter content, this recipe created a very soft dough made even softer by the heat in the kitchen. Trying to work with this dough was like trying to tie egg whites into a knot. The second thing I learned was that the quantity given for the fruit preserves wasn't quite enough. I nearly doubled it in order to have enough for all the dough. The third and most important thing I learned was that with this recipe you have to work FAST because the dough gets softer and softer as you manipulate it. Turns out that if you keep the dough AND the cookie sheets chilled as much as possible, the process becomes a bit easier. Oh, and one more thing. The recipe calls for rolling the dough into a circle, adding the filling then cutting it into wedges like a pizza pie. Don't even think of using a knife to cut that dough. You'll make a big mess. Use a pizza wheel instead. Soooo much simpler. 

Ta-daa! Delicious.

The finished rugelach didn't look anything like the store bought variety and I was sure that my first attempt would be a disappointment but to my amazement that was not the case. They turned out delicious (albeit not very attractive). They tasted every bit as good as the ones I was used to buying. My husband quickly became enamored of the fresh baked delights and insisted on tasting them continually to make sure he wasn't mistaken. Even I thought they turned out wonderfully and I'm my worst critic. 

I guess I will now be expected to bake rugelach from now on instead of buying them. Next time I think I'll use an apple filling made from the apples on my tree. Hmmmm. Wanna guess what I'll be doing this fall?


Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva