Adventures in Baking: Rugelach

Photography: Naomi Parker

Up until about six months ago, I thought of rugelach as the factory-produced, Fig Newtonish, dry-as-yesterday’s-toast-looking cookies often seen gathering dust in supermarket “bakery” sections. It never occurred to me to actually eat one.

Enter Mindy Segal, author of Cookie Love, and the folks at Seattle’s Book Larder who hosted an evening that forced this particular cookie lover to completely rethink rugelach. I admit, I was skeptical when I heard which cookies we’d be sampling. But then I heard the magic words “strawberry rhubarb.” As in rugelach filled with homemade strawberry-rhubarb jam. “Ok,” I thought, “how bad could it be?”

I came home on a sugar high (copy of said cookbook in tow) and asked my boyfriend, “Have you ever had rugelach? It’s my new favorite thing! I never imagined it could be so good!”

He said, “Yeah, it’s a little bitter, but I like it in some things.”

Ok, admittedly this cookie’s name sounds like a certain leafy green, but when have I ever gushed about any vegetable whatsoever? To avoid further confusion, I now call them “pie cookies”—to me, rugelach taste like a generous portion of pie crust without all that pesky filling.

With a bit of Googling, I’ve been able to ascertain that rugelach are a traditional Jewish treat made in the shape of a crescent—the name means “little twists” in Yiddish. An alternate form of rugelach is rolled into a log and cut into slices before or after baking (apparently, these are the aforementioned variety I’ve spent a lifetime avoiding).

In addition to the different shapes, rugelach dough falls into two camps: a yeasted version (which may or may not include sour cream) and an Americanized version made with cream cheese. And just to confuse matters more, some of the cream cheese dough recipes (such as Dorie Greenspan’s ) call for cutting the cream cheese and butter into flour as in a classic pie dough, while others call for beating the cream cheese and butter together, then adding flour. Since the only kind I’d ever tried—Mindy Segal’s recipe—used the latter method, that’s the one I chose to follow on my maiden rugelach-making voyage.

For a dessert that involves rolling out dough, rugelach were surprisingly simple, thanks in part to Segal’s creative use of parchment paper (which I’ll describe in the recipe that follows).

Photography: Kim Holloway

I filled my first pie cookies with store-bought strawberry-rhubarb jam, which will do in a pinch. My second batch made with homemade vanilla plum jam tasted even better, despite the slapdash look caused by hurriedly rolling and shaping cookies in the midst of Seattle’s summer heat wave. Maybe there’s a practical reason that rugelach are thought of as holiday cookies—cooler kitchen temperatures.

Now that fall has officially arrived, I’m eager to test more rugelach flavors. I filled my most recent batch with Nutella, which I liked better than both of the previous versions combined. I’m looking forward to experimenting with chocolate, nuts, cookie butter or maybe all of the above. One day when I’m feeling overly ambitious, I’ll try to recreate Segal’s rugelach made with homemade hot fudge and a hazelnut cocoa nib streusel. Even an expert baker and the magic of cookbook photography can’t elevate that particular variety beyond a decidedly rustic look, so I won’t be surprised if my version gets passed over at the next potluck. No worries—more for me!

Photography: Naomi Parker

A Few Rugelach Tips Learned the Hard Way

• Some cookie doughs can be rolled out with powdered sugar instead of flour; this is not one of them. The sugar made the dough soft, sticky and ultimately unroll-able. I switched back to flour and the dough became much more manageable.
• This dough is like Fonzie—it likes to be cool. I’d go so far as to suggest popping the rolled-out dough in the freezer for 20 minutes before filling and shaping.
• There is such a thing as too much filling—who knew? The recipe calls for a thin layer of jam. If you go ahead and finish off the jar in the mistaken notion that more is better, the filling will ooze out and burn before the cookies are baked.
• Resist the urge to overbake (admittedly, this is a tough one for me) or the jam may transition into fruit leather territory, which may wreak havoc on dental work.
• Don’t cut Nutella-filled dough with a deeply grooved pastry cutter. Sure, it looks pretty, but the Nutella must be forcibly removed from each tiny groove. However, this would make a great project to occupy the small hands of a kitchen “helper.”

Pie Cookies AKA Rugelach

Print recipe

Serves

48 cookies

Ingredients

For the dough

• 1 cup (8 oz.) unsalted butter at room temperature
• 8oz cream cheese at room temperature
• 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar*
• 1 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract
• 2 cups (10 oz.) all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon sea salt flakes**

To assemble

• 1 recipe dough
• 1 1/2 cup jam
• 1 large egg white, lightly beaten***
• 1/4 cup sugar (more or less) for sprinkling
• powdered sugar for dusting

Note

This recipe is adapted from Cookie Love by Mindy Segal. You can watch a helpful video of Mindy rolling out the dough here.

 

Directions

Make the dough
1.	In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment and set at medium speed, mix butter for about 10 seconds.
2.	Add cream cheese and mix for 10 to 15 seconds to combine.
3.	Add sugar and beat until light yellow and fluffy looking, about 3 minutes.
4.	Add vanilla and mix briefly until incorporated. Scrape down sides and bottom of bowl to bring batter together.
5.	In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour and salts.
6.	Add flour mixture to stand mixer bowl all at once and mix on low speed until the dough just comes together, about 30 seconds. Dough may look shaggy, but try not to overmix.
7.	Remove bowl from stand mixer and bring the dough together by hand using a plastic bench scraper or spatula.
8.	Divide dough in half (each will weigh around 14 1/2 oz.) and place each on a separate sheet of plastic wrap. Pat dough into rectangles, wrap tightly and refrigerate until chilled, at least two hours or up to one week.
Assemble
9.	Take dough out of the fridge to shake off the chill for a few minutes. Meanwhile, line baking sheets with parchment paper. Then cut two sheets of parchment to roughly 13” x 18”. Place one sheet on work surface and dust lightly with flour and set the other one aside near rolling area.
10.	Unwrap one dough half and place on parchment. Roll dough into a rectangle leaving a 1” border from edges of parchment paper. Dough should be approximately 1/4” thick. Trim off edges for an even rectangle. Full disclosure: I rerolled the scraps and made more rugelach. (Mindy’s rolling trick: To keep dough from sticking, periodically dust top lightly with flour, cover with the second sheet of parchment and flip the dough and paper over. Peel off the top sheet of parchment and keep on rolling. I imagine this genius method would work well for pie dough, too.)
11.	Stash dough rectangle in the fridge or freezer while rolling out the second half. Then chill second half while moving on to the next step.
12.	Preheat oven to 350°. Spread 3/4 cup of jam in a thin, even layer across the surface of the dough. Using a pastry wheel or pizza cutter, divide dough in half lengthwise into two long strips. Working one strip at a time, cut out triangles with flat tips (bases about 1 1/2” wide and tips about 1/4”). Aim for about 12 triangles per strip.
13.	Using an offset spatula, separate a triangle away from the rest of the dough. Starting from the base, roll dough up like a crescent roll. Place tip-side down on prepared baking pan and repeat with remaining triangles, spacing cookies about 1” apart.
14.	Brush tops with egg white, if you must, and sprinkle generously with sugar.
15.	Bake for 15 minutes. Rotate pan and bake another 6 to 8 minutes until the tops are golden brown.
16.	Let cookies cool on sheet pan for 2 minutes then transfer to cooling rack. Don’t wait too long or the preserves will stick to the parchment paper.
17.	Repeat with remaining dough. Note: If you want to make the second batch another day, dough or pre-shaped cookies will keep in the freezer for about 3 months. Baked rugelach can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days, if they last that long.

What’s your favorite rugelach filling? Got any secrets for success? Please share!

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Kim Holloway

Kim is a freelance copywriter for Sur La Table. She prefers baking to cooking, pecans to walnuts and lemonade to almost any other drink. She peruses estate sales for vintage linens, fancy glassware and dusty old books. As for the contents of her “food museum,” the less said, the better.

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