Rugelach Cookies

When I was married before, I had a Sister in Law who was Jewish and lived in Toronto.  She knew where to get the best Bagels.  She would pick them up early Saturday morning, and bring back two huge paper bag's full from her local Jewish Baker,  think it was called Gryfe's.  Oh boy but they were some good.  We'd eat them fresh out of the bag, with cream cheese and lox.  Hot coffees (when I drank coffee) and sometimes these tiny little delicate Rugelach Cookies, that were like little puffs of heavenly bliss.  I am not sure if she got the Rugelach in the same place as the bagels.

 

I got to craving Rugelach earlier this week and decided to see if I could make my own.  I went online (as you do) to find a good recipe for them, and I found a ton of recipes, basically all the same, so I thought if people are using this same recipe to make rugelach, then it must be a good rugelach. I decided to go with the one I found on Kitchn, as the instructions were really good, it was kind of like a tutorial, but basically most of the recipes I saw were just like this.

 

They are not the cookie to make when you are in a hurry, for sure, but they are so worth the effort and mess of taking out the food processor.  The recipe does make quite a few, but that's not a problem because they are so good that you will inhale about a dozen right off the bat!

 

Its a basic dough composed of pretty much equal parts of cream cheese, flour and butter, an egg yolk and some vanilla.  This is so flaky and rich when baked . . .  like I said little puffs of heaven.  The dough is chilled twice. . The first time as discs and the second time, rolled out, filled, cut and on baking sheets.

 

I went with a walnut and honey filling this time, which I flavoured lightly with vanilla, cinnamon and cardamom. But you can use chopped dried fruits also, or chocolate chips.  My sister in law used to get a mixture.  All were very good.

 

Its also important to note that you don't have to make a full recipe if you don't want to.  You can cut the recipe in half and simply leave out the egg yolk.  That is what I did and they worked perfectly.

 

*Rugelach Cookies*

Makes 64 

Printable Recipe 

Crisp buttery cookies rolled around  delicious walnut, honey and cinnamon filling.  The recipe can be successfully cut in half, in which case I recommend you leave out the egg yolk. They are a tiny bit faffy, but well worth the effort. Plan ahead as the dough needs to chill. 

280g plain flour (2 cups)

1/4 tsp salt

227g of cold cream cheese broken up into bits (8 ounces)

230g cold butter, cut into bits (1 cup)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 free range egg yolk

sifted icing sugar for dusting (confectioners) 

For the filling:

245g shelled walnuts (2 cups)

4 TBS butter melted

4 TBS liquid honey

4 TBS soft light brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

pinch ground cardamom

 

First make the cookie dough.  Put the flour and salt into the bowl of a food processor.  Drop in the cream cheese and the butter. Pulse until you get crumbs.  Whisk together the vanilla and egg yolk and add. Pulse until the dough just begins to clump together in large bits.  Tip out onto a counter top which you have generously dusted with icing sugar. Bring together into a ball and divide the ball in half.  Divide the halves in half and shape each quarter into a flat disc about 1 inch in depth.  Wrap in plastic cling film and chill for about an hour.

While the dough is chilling make the filling.  Pulse the walnuts in the food processor until they are finely chopped, but NOT ground.  Stir them together with the melted butter, honey, brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and cardamom.  Cover and set aside.

Have ready several baking sheets which you have lined with baking parchment.  

Remove one disc of dough from the refrigerator.  Dust the counter top generously with sifted icing sugar and dust your rolling pin with it also. Coat the chilled disc with icing sugar and roll out to a circle which is about 1/8 in thick and roughly 10 inches in diameter.  Spread 1/4 of the walnut mixture over top in a thin and even layer, right up to the edges.  Cut the circle into quarters and then cut each quarter into quarters. They will look like pizza wedges, but of course a lot smaller!  Roll up from the wide edge of each triangle towards the tip.  Place onto one of the baking sheets, with the narrow tip underneath, leaving some space in between each.  Place the whole baking sheet into the refrigerator for half an hour while you repeat these steps with a second circle of dough.

 

Preheat the oven to 190*C/375*F/ gas mark 5. 

Once you have a second sheet filled with cookies, remove the chilling one from the refrigerator and replace with the next sheet.  Bake the refrigerated sheet in the preheated oven for 18 to 20  minutes, working on the remaining batches in the meantime.  Mine took  20 minutes and they were nice and golden brown and perfectly baked.

 

Allow the baked cookies to rest on the baking sheet for give minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.  Repeat with each subsequent batch. 

Store in a tightly covered container, in a cool place for up to 5 days.  They can also be frozen.  They also make excellent gifts.

 

These are excellent and really, not much trouble at all to make.  They are not as quick as a mix and drop cookie, but they are worth every little bit of extra effort.  Next time I am going to make the full recipe and fill them with some fruit and chocolate.  These are so delicious I can tell you that it won't be very long before I will be baking them again!  Bon Appetit!

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