Tuesdays With Julia and Dorie: Rugelach

DELICIOUS ADDITION TO OUR  "SAYING GOOD-BYE TO OUR FRIENDS" DINNER

How much fun is this!!!  Rugelach, made with a buttery, cream cheese dough and “abundantly stuffed” with a homemade apricot lekvar, finely chopped pecans, and lots of cinnamon-sugar... YUM!

I needed cookies for a few occasions this week so I decided to make LOTS of Rugelach for all my needs.  Friends who are moving out of state came for dinner, I always take homemade treats to my adult Sunday school class where I plan on 75 attenders, the usual weekend crowd stopping by looking for food,......     One can never have too many good cookies.

It’s a very busy week, so these cookies took some planning, especially since I decided to 5 X the recipe (about 250 cookies).  Wednesday night I made all the dough, in my food processor.  The by-hand method sounded lovely, but I needed to get this dough finished and into the fridge.  It all came together nicely with my modern machine.

Friday evening I had time to make my fillings.  I actually made several types and flavors of fillings, but when it came time to actually roll out and fill my cookies, I chose to use only the apricot version just to keep things moving along.  I was really wanting chocolate and berries and a variety of nuts, but those can wait for another time.  After making my initial apricot batch, and trying them, and trying them again, and again...well...they were really good. 

Saturday afternoon I made all the cookies...took about 3 hours, but it was nice to have my kitchen time after a yard work and house cleaning morning.

UPDATED CENTURY'S OLD JEWISH COOKIE

My Sunday school class lesson was on the writings of the ancient Old Testament Hebrew prophet, Isaiah.  I knew these cookies would add a little more inspiration.  While baking I decided to tell my class (after doing some internet research) that this Rugelach recipe is an updated version of a century’s old Eastern European Jewish recipe and with the dried fruits and nuts it could have been something similar to what was eaten in ancient Jerusalem.  (But I’m sure my cookies had lots of extra sugar.) My class agreed and loved the idea of eating a Jewish food with a long history.  I may be totally wrong, but I did read several comments where this cookie is served during Jewish holidays.  And I have seen them in bakeries during Jewish holidays, and at Christmas time, and whatever their heritage, they are delicious.

After my dough chilled for a couple of days (much longer than necessary), I rolled it out into long rectangle shapes about 1/4" thick, slathered them with my apricot lekvar, added the nuts, and sprinkled their tops with lots of cinnamon sugar.  Then  I cut the topped dough rectangles in half lengthwise, and rolled each half like I would cinnamon rolls.  After pinching the seams together, I added an egg wash and sprinkled the long, cookie rolls with more cinnamon sugar.  Last, each roll was sliced with a pizza cutter into 1 ½" pieces, placed on doubled, lined baking sheets and baked for 22 minutes, until golden brown.

YUM!  FRUIT, NUTS, BUTTER, CREAM CHEESE....SOME OF THE WORLD'S BEST FOODS

Wow!  After cooling for just a few minutes, these were delicious.  Not too sweet; just little 2 or 3 bites each of puffed up goodness.  These cookies are dangerous.  I gave myself all the ends, that’s 2 on each of the 10 rolls I made (already I’m up to 20 cookies) and I had to taste several more to make sure each batch was worthy of my friends...Yup, they were.  I must have eaten pounds of butter and cream cheese and sugar and....it was all good...had to keep myself going for those 3 hours, especially after all my morning work.

Next time, I’ll roll my cookies into crescent shapes which I think are prettier, and I’ll use other fillings just for fun.  I’ve already added  Rugulach to my Christmas cookie baking list. 

See you all in a couple of weeks after St. Paddy's day baking...up next with this group, Irish Soda Bread.