Rugelach (Nutella & Jam Flavors)

We made Rugelach from Baking Illustrated back in 2010 and that was the one & only time we made them. It wasn't because they weren't tasty. They were. It was because the cookie was a bit on the large side and I prefer smaller cookies at the holidays because that way, you can eat more kinds rather than being full from just one large-ish cookie. It also was because they were a lot of work. Chill the dough, roll dough, freeze dough, add filling and shape into crescents, freeze crescents, bake crescents. So time consuming.

When I saw a Rugelach recipe in the current Cook's Country (Dec-Jan 2021) I was excited because there wasn't multiple chilling/freezing steps and because the cookie crescents were smaller. Plus, Nutella. Yum.

There were several filling suggestions: Nutella, cinnamon-walnut, and jam (raspberry or apricot). It's very easy to use different fillings on the same batch of dough. 

The dough is rolled into 2 12-inch circles. Each circle is topped with 1/3 cup filling before being cut into 16 wedges and each wedge rolled into a crescent.

We topped one circle with Nutella. For the second circle, we cut it in half and spread one half with raspberry jam and the other half with apricot jam. 

So we have 32 rugelach cookies: 16 Nutella, 8 raspberry, and 8 apricot. They all are delicious. There is sour cream and cream cheese in the dough so the cookie part is really yummy. My favorite is the Nutella. SP's favorite is the apricot.

These were much easier and less time consuming than the other rugelach we made plus the cookie is smaller, which I like. The egg wash and Demerara sugar on top make a delicious, sweet crust on top.

Definitely a Make Again cookie.

Recipe here: Rugelach