This Easy Rugelach Cookies recipe is a stuffed dessert of the Polish Jewish community tradition, which prepare in the form of a roll similar to strudel or croissants and serve as much tasty stuffed biscuits. The dough kneaded with cream cheese or sour cream, while we in today’s recipe have combined it with butter and eggs for a more crumbly dough.
The filling prepares in several ways by combining your favorite jam with dried fruits like nuts, raisins, but you can fill this dessert as you like using chocolate, or hazelnut cream, etc. In today’s filling, we added in addition to nuts also, dried hazelnut and almonds. The Rugelach filling flavors with cinnamon, which go best with this dessert and make it even more lovable to enjoy for the holidays.
The icing sugar is optional, but it makes this dessert even more beloved, especially for kids. Preparing the dough with cream cheese and the obtained amount of sugar makes it a pleasant and light dessert to consume. The sweetness offered by the filling combines best with the dough, and in the end, we have a uniquely delicate and much great taste.
We can consume this dessert whenever we want during the day, starting from breakfast accompanied by your favorite breakfast drink, coffee, tea, milk, fruit juice, etc. It is a delicious choice to serve during meals, at the end of them, or as a long snack day. It is loved by children and the whole family, where the presence of dried fruits and their crunchiness while eating make this dessert even more beloved. Follow the preparation and ingredients below.
Ingredients
For the pastry dough
- 330 g all-purpose flour
- 170 g cold cream cheese in pieces
- 130 g cold butter in pieces
- 1-egg
- a little salt
- 3 tbsp of sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- Lemon zest or vanilla extract
For the filling
- 150 g of peach jam
- 150 g of plum jam
- 100 g of raisins
- 60 g walnuts
- 60 g hazelnuts
- 60 g almonds
- 1 ltbsp of cinamon
- 2-3 tbsp of brown sugar
- egg wash for for coating the dough before baking
- icing sugar for powdering
Directions
- First, we will prepare the dough for our dessert.
In a deep bowl, we will add dried ingredients and mix them all. We add sifted flour, salt, granulated sugar, baking powder, and lemon zest and mix it well. We will add cold butter from the fridge into pieces. Mix well until the flour forms a grain, and then we will add the cheese into pieces, too. We will mix again by lightly working the dough so that the dough does not release too much. Finally, add the egg and mix, achieving a soft but not sticky dough. The dough turns out softer than shortcut pastry dough as we use cream cheese. - We separate the Rugelach pastry dough into two parts and wrap it with plastic paper. Let it sit in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes. We can prepare it even the night before if you do not have much time the next day.
- While the dough rests, we will prepare the filling.
In a deep bowl, mix all the dried nuts, where we have minced the nuts, almonds, and hazelnuts before, but not too finely. You can grind them in a kitchen blender or grater, but do not make flour at all. We will add brown sugar and cinnamon and mix it all. We also make the jam ready in two bowls, or if you like, you can use only one type of jams or hazelnut cream. - We will open the dough into a rectangular shape using a little flour, and for easier rolling, we will place it on a parching paper. We roll the dough to the required size, aiming at an average thickness of about 0.5 mm.
- We will first coat the layer with jam, and then we will distribute half the amount of filling prepared with dried fruits. We will roll it up and then put it back in the fridge to rest for 20-30 minutes for the dough to harden, and we will be able to cut it into pieces partially before baking. I call it partial, as we will divide the roll into pieces with a thickness of 2-3 cm but without cutting it to the end. In this way, the baking will do properly, and it will be easier to cut the roll into pieces after it bakes. Do not cut biscuits thinner as they may crumble during baking.
- Once we take it out of the fridge, we will cut it as I explained above. We separate the filling roll into pieces to give shape cookies, caring to not cut to the end.
- We will use the egg wash to coat the roll surface and put it to bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 20-25 minutes until it gets a golden red color.
- Once it bakes, we will let it cool a bit first, and after it, we will cut the roll without moving it from the pan until it cools completely. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Once it cools, we transfer it to a serving plate and sprinkle it again with powdered sugar and serve it as a dessert during a meal or even after it, or at any hour of the day you prefer something sweet.
Bon Appetit!
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