Tuesdays with Dorie: Rugelach

So a few weeks ago I whined about how I hate making biscotti because I used to have to make it by the truckload. Someone, somewhere, heard my pathetic grumbling and decided to teach me a lesson by having rugelach be this week's TWD recipe. You see, back in the day when I had to make billions of biscotti, I also had to make tons of rugelach, which is an awful lot of rolling and shaping and cutting and egg washing and baking, believe you me. *patiently waits for sympathy*

So this week's recipe was another baked good I thought I had sworn off forever, and once again I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed making and eating it again. I think there's a lesson here somewhere about not holding grudges and time healing all wounds, but I'm too busy munching on rugelach to really process it. La la la...


The dough was incredibly simple: just some flour, cream cheese, and butter, pulsed in the food processor until it barely held together. I made it the evening before I planned to bake, so it had a good long overnight chill in the refrigerator.

Because I am nothing if not indecisive, I made two varieties. The first one had Nutella (thanks to Clara for that idea!), hazelnuts, and a bit of chopped gianduja chocolate, which is chocolate that is flavored with hazelnut paste.


The second variety had cherry preserves (my favorite, from Trader Joe's), chopped almonds, and finely chopped bittersweet chocolate. I omitted the sprinkling of sugar from both fillings, figuring that they would be sweet enough with the Nutella, chocolate, and jam. The shaping wasn't too tricky, although I wished I'd waited to sprinkle the nuts and chocolate until after cutting, since the pizza wheel I used kept getting caught on the chunks. Cutting each circle into 16 wedges produced the most petite, adorable rugelachies ever! A quick chill in the fridge, an egg wash and a sprinkling of sugar, and my babies were ready for baking.


So how were they? On a scale of Gross to Fantastic, I would rate them Pretty Good! Truth be told, they weren't quite sweet enough for me. I am used to a rugelach dough that contains a bit of sugar, so next time I'll either add sugar to the dough, do a sprinkling before I roll them, or use a much sweeter filling, because they didn't get much sweetness from the bittersweet chocolate or tart cherry preserves. So that was a bit of a bummer, but other folks with less of a sweet tooth liked them quite a bit. I thought the pastry was wonderful--light, tangy, and very flaky--and the miniature size was perfect. Yes, they definitely have potential. What did you folks think?