Tuesdays with Dorie – Rugelach

Let me just say – I love these cookies.  They are so, so good – even though I have no basis for comparison, never having had rugelach before – what’s not to like?  A slightly tangy cream cheese dough, a slick of tart raspberry jam, toasted pecans and chocolate chips .. and in such a pretty package!  I have to admit I was a bit apprehensive about these cookies – I wasn’t sure I could pull it off, but it really wasn’t not hard.  The dough took all of 5 minutes to put together (of course, with the help of my food processor) and after that, it was pretty much smooth sailing.

As you can see, I did mine in two shapes.  After I chilled my two discs of dough, I took the first one out and rolled it out.  First of all, I couldn’t get even close to the 11-12 inch circle that Dorie instructs us to in the book.  I think my circle was more like 8-9 inches!  Since my circle was small, I cut it into less sections – 8 instead of the 16 that Dorie suggests.  I thought these would be harder to roll into the cute little crescents, but they were pretty simple.  With the next disc, I decided to just roll the whole thing up into a cigar shape and make slices.  Yes, it was a bit of cheating, but I did do some the right way.    Besides, I liked the variation!  And they were so much neater than my haphazard crescents. 

For my filling, I used raspberry preserves (At first, I forgot to buy the jam; but my husband was gracious enough to stop by a Trader Joe’s with me on our way home from running a few other errands) that I heated up gently and then strained to get the seeds out.  I omitted the raisins/currants/dried fruit aspect and increased the amount of nuts I used.  I toasted my pecans before chopping them finely.  And then I used mini semi-sweet chocolate chips.  I couldn’t find a non-colored sanding sugar, so I used a large-grained demerara sugar for the topping and thought it was perfect.

I think these were a huge hit!  My husband loved them and my in-laws seemed to enjoy them as well.   My sister-in-law was not so crazy about them, but I think it may be the raspberry jam that she didn’t like.  I think strawberry would work well too.  I’m thinking of making these for the holidays – perhaps doubling the recipe and making them for my coworkers or for my husband’s coworkers.   This has definitely been one of my favorite Tuesdays with Dorie recipes!  Visit the Tuesdays with Dorie page to see how other bakers fared with the recipe; and visit Piggy’s Cooking Journal for the recipe!