Be sure to chill the dough overnight before making rugelach. This firms it up, redistributing moisture so rolling is easy. If it’s not chilled, you’ll use more flour to roll, making tough, floury-tasting cookies. Brought to you from Cuisine at Home.
Be sure to chill the dough overnight before making rugelach. This firms it up, redistributing moisture so rolling is easy. If it’s not chilled, you’ll use more flour to roll, making tough, floury-tasting cookies. Brought to you from Cuisine at Home.
Cream butter, cheese, and zest with a mixer on medium speed.
Sift dry ingredients and add; blend just until incorporated (use a wooden spoon if hard to mix).
Shape dough into a thick log and divide into three 8-oz. portions.
Wrap each piece in plastic and flatten into a disk.
Chill dough overnight before using.
Preheat oven to 350°; line baking sheets with parchment paper.
Prepare (but keep separate) walnuts, cinnamon-sugar (mix 3/4 cup sugar with the 1 TBS cinnamon), melted butter, egg-water wash (mix egg with the 1 tsp water), and sprinkling sugar.
Lightly dust work surface with flour.
Flatten a chilled dough disk lightly with rolling pin, then roll it into a 12" circle, 1/8" thick.
Flip dough often to prevent sticking.
Ragged edges are normal.
If there are big gaps in the dough, just trim off a little dough from another area (any place it goes over 12") and patch it in inches.
Lightly brush the dough with melted butter; sprinkle 1/4 cup cinnamon-sugar over the entire surface.
Then sprinkle 1/3 cup chopped walnuts on the sugar.
With the rolling pin, gently press the nuts into the dough all the way across the circle—this will help keep the nuts in place when you roll up the cookies.
Use a pizza wheel to cut 16 wedges—first cut the circle in half, then in half again to make quarters. Now cut each quarter in half, then again to make 16.
Starting at the wide end of a wedge, roll it to the center of the circle to make a crescent.
Place on a prepared baking sheet, point down, spacing 1" apart.
Gently brush cookies with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar.
Bake 20–30 min., or until brown, rotating pan halfway through baking.
Cool rugelach on racks.
Rugelach rules are minimal—here is how to roll, assemble, and bake.
Rolling: It’s fine if you don’t roll a perfect circle (I can’t!). The dough will crack at the edges— that’s okay! Once the round is roughly 12" across, patch gaps with dough trim from the sides.
Assembling: Don’t skimp on cinnamon-sugar and nuts when assembling rugelach. You’ll think it’s overloaded inside, but most of the cookie’s flavor comes from the filling. Coarse sugar sprinkled on top makes festive-looking rugelach, but if you don’t have it, just use a good amount of regular sugar.
Baking: Of these three rules, baking is most critical. Rugelach must be baked long enough—they’re thick in the middle and will take longer to bake than most other cookies. Your goal is a cookie with rich browning all the way around—but not too much!
