This week, Tuesdays with Dorie is baking up the very rich and delicious rugelach, a traditional Jewish pastry from contributing baker, Lauren Groveman featured in the chosen book, Baking with Julia. Dried fruits and nuts are encased in a cream cheese pastry spread with an apricot or prune paste called lekvar. One look at the recipe may give you a case of baking stage fright, but by reading through it several times, you will realize the recipe can be done in stages. The cream cheese pastry is easily made in a food processor and should be refrigerated several hours to firm up, or it can be frozen for up to a month before completing the pastry. The filled dough also benefits from a spell in the refrigerator. A good keeper, the baked rugelach will keep for a week in airtight containers, but also can be frozen for up to a month. While these rugelach are rolled and cut pinwheel style, they can also be made in a crescent shape as in the photo below. We made rugelach back when the TWD group baked from Dorie Greenspan’s, Baking From My Home to Yours. The slice and bake method is less time-consuming than crescent shape, but just as delicious.
My construction of the rugelach is a much simpler version using quince paste, toasted walnuts and the sugar and cinnamon mixture for the filling and the topping. If using the dried fruit and nuts, chop them in small pieces. While baking, the rolls exude this lovely caramelized pool around the pinwheels which tastes delicious, but as the rolls cool, the caramel can be removed (and enjoyed!) for presentation.
The recipe can be found on page 325 of the Baking with Julia book, but can be also be found on this week’s hosts, Jessica of My Baking Heart and Margaret from The Urban Hiker. Also, check out the TWD blogroll.
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Your rugelach are lovely. Great pictures. These were a bit of work, but worth the effort.
It was a big help that the components could be made over several days! Your filling combo sounds delicious!
They look delicious!
What a lovely interpretation of rugelach–sounds delicious, looks delicious.
Quince paste! Brilliant idea. It has the perfect consistency for rugelach. Here it´s been a bakery staple forever (and I mean hundreds of years) and it´s even sold with walnuts already mixed in the paste. Your pictures are super.
Quince paste is a great idea–I bet it tasted really good coupled with walnuts. Your rugelach are perfect!
It looks divine, very delicious.
Your cookies sound and look absolutely delicious!
From a fellow TWD participant, wow! Stunning pictures and it looks like your rugelach turned out perfectly. Glad to bake with you!
Beautifully lit and lovely set up!
Quince paste and walnuts sounds like a devine filling!