Day 7: Rugelach

It's been quite the eventful Saturday for me filled with eating, shopping, and spending time with my friends, but don't worry we did not forget about our cookies! We made a traditional Russian-Jewish pastry today: Rugelach. Rugelach is fun to make because they can be filled with many different types of jams or fillings. Today, we made two different kinds of Rugelach. One filled with raspberry and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and pecans and the other filled with nutella and hazelnuts. Therefore, you add two more varieties of cookies to your cookie platter without the effort of making two different doughs. How efficient!

Recipe Adapted from The Dairy Hollow House Cookbook:

Rugelach- Makes 3 dozen

1 cup cream cheese
1 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 tablespoons sugar
dash of salt
2 cups unbleached flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 3/4 tablespoon cinnamon
2/3 finely chopped pecans or walnuts
jam

Soften cream cheese and butter to room temperature. Cream butter and cream cheese together until smooth and thoroughly blended. Beat in vanilla, 4 tablespoons sugar, dash of salt, and one cup of flour. When smooth, stir in an extra cup of flour. Turn dough out onto lightly floured board and knead until dough comes together. Divide dough into fourths and pat each third into a thick, flattened circle. Refrigerate for about an hour. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine tossing together 1/2 cup sugar, cinnamon, and nuts. Working with dough circles one at a time, remove from fridge and roll out into a circle about 14 inches. Spread dough with jam or other filling and then sprinkle with toppings. Divide dough into 12 pie-shaped wedges per dough circle. Roll dough from wide end to smaller end. Male sure to line your baking sheets with parchment paper. It makes the process of removing them from the sheet much easier and cleaner. Bake for 15-20 minutes. When removed from oven, sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Here are the traditional ones with raspberry filling and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar topping.

And here are the ones with nutella filling and sprinkled with hazelnuts.

Although they both are delicious, my mom and I came to the consensus that the traditional jam filled ones reign supreme. Enjoy the rest of your Saturday night and cross your fingers for snow tomorrow!