TWD Rugelach

Rugelach is a cookie that took me by surprise a few years ago. It was December 2005, and I was working as a manager at a busy bakery in St. Helena, CA. The pastry chef started baking a ton of new cookies for the holiday, and one in particular caught my attention. It was flaky, cut into a jelly roll shape and had dried apricots; it was rugelach. The cookie looked beautiful, so I asked about it; only to be disappointed to hear it contained walnuts. I have never enjoyed nuts in my baked goods, so I wrote them off until one day when I smelled them right out of the oven. The smell was intoxicating and I decided to give them a go. Well, wouldn't you know it; I liked walnuts in this cookie. It was by far the best cookie she made that holiday season.

I've been lucky enough to eat Dorie's rugelach cookies before. My friend Sharon made them when the original concept of my blog was to have my friends bake from a specific cookbook, and then we would all get together, sample the goodies; and I would blog about it later. It was a great idea except for the fact that all my California friends moved out of state; including myself! When Sharon made these cookies we loved them though, so I was excited to try this recipe out myself.

I spent most of today running errands and waiting in line to vote. An hour and a half after getting in line to vote; I was relieved to put my ballot into the machine and walk out with a feeling of hope, and a fun project in front of me. On the way home I stopped by Starbucks for my free voter coffee; big mistake! I am still over caffeinated 2 hours after drinking the coffee (or maybe it has something to do with all the sugar I consumed after making these J).

I doubled the recipe because we have a big family party to go to on Sunday.




After processing the doughs and letting them chill for a few hours; I started the process. I made four different types of rugelach. The first was Dorie's chocolate filling except I subbed cranberries for currants. The second batch was Dorie's filling sans walnuts. For the third batch, I decided to play around with Nutella. My cookie contained Nutella, hazelnuts and espresso sugar.



Lastly, I made a cookie that contained caramel pear butter, cardamom sugar and almonds. Here they are before going in the oven.

They were all fantastic, but if I had to choose I would say the Nutella, espresso sugar and hazelnut rugelach was my favorite. Many thanks to Piggy of Piggy's Cooking Journal for picking this recipe.