[Recipe]: Rugelach

• Difficulty: Easy
• Prep time: 1 hour
• Chill time: at least 2 hours refrigerator
• Total time: at least 3 hours
• Serves: 48 rugelach
• Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients

• Dough
  • 2 cups (260 grams) all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon fine sea or table salt
  • 1/2 pound (225 grams) unsalted butter
  • 1/2 pound (1 8-ounce or 225-gram package) cream cheese
• Filling
  • 2/3 cup (135 grams) granulated sugar
  • 1 1/2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
  • 1/3 cup miniature chocolate chips
  • 1/3 cup toasted chopped walnuts
  • 1/3 cup dried fruit
    • We liked using dried cherries
  • 1/2 to 3/4 cup jam
    • We liked using Sarabeth’s Plum Cherry
• Finish
  • 1 egg beaten with 1 teaspoon water

Process

Making the dough

Using the food processor worked particularly well for our first batch.

• Option 1: In a food processor
  • Place flour and salt in work bowl fitted with standard blade. Pulse to combine.
  • Add cream cheese, chopped into large chunks, and run machine until it’s fully dispersed into the flour.
  • Add butter in large chunks and run machine until dough starts to clump.
  • Dump out onto a large piece of plastic wrap and form into a flattish disc.
• Option 2: With a mixer
  • Let butter and cream cheese soften at room temperature.
  • Beat both together until light and fluffy.
  • Beat in salt.
  • Add flour, beating until it disappears.
  • Scrape dough onto a large piece of plastic wrap and form into a flattish disc.
• Chill dough until totally firm in the refrigerator (keeps for up to a week)

Forming the cookies

• Heat oven to 350º F and line baking sheets with parchment paper or nonstick baking mats.
• Stir cinnamon and sugar together in a small dish.
• Combine filling ingredients in a second dish.
• Divide dough into quarters and roll first quarter out on a floured counter into a rectangle about 12 inches wide and 7 to 8 inches long, with the wider side to you.
• Thinly spread jam to all but the furthest 1/4 inch from you — which seals better once rolled if bare — with about 2 to 3 tablespoons jam.
  • If your jam is difficult to spread, warm it gently in the microwave first.
• Sprinkle with 2 tablespoons cinnamon-sugar mixture, then 4 tablespoons filling mixture.
• Roll dough from the 12 inch side in front of you into as tight as a log as you can, using your fingers to lightly seal the ends onto the log. Repeat with remaining logs.
• Shape however you like.

Bake

• Brush top(s) lightly with egg wash and sprinkle with a total of 1 teaspoon of the remaining cinnamon-sugar mixture.
• Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden brown on top.
• Individual cookies need to cool only a few minutes on baking sheet before they can be transferred to a cooling rack.
• Larger rings, wreaths and logs do best if they cool at least 3/4 of the way to solidify more before attempting to carefully transfer them.