Chocolate-Pecan
Rugelach
(rug·e·lach) (rü-gə-ləḵ)
(rug·e·lach) (rü-gə-ləḵ)
Origins
of rugelach, the favorite Jewish pastry, date back to the Hungarian kifli,
Austrian kipfel and Polish rogal. The
crescent-shaped filled pastry was originally made with yeast dough and filled
with fruit jams, poppy seed paste or nuts. Today rugelach may be the most popular sweet
pastry both in the American Jewish community and in Israel. But these are very different pastries.
There are many examples in Jewish
history of dishes traveling across continents and countries while changing and
adapting flavors and techniques; the rugelach, which traveled east and west
from Central Europe and ended as very different pastries, carrying the same
name.
In American, bakers quickly came up
with a short cut for the complex yeast dough rugelach, and by 1940’s they were
already making yeast-less rich cream cheese dough.
Cream
Cheese Dough
6 oz. cream cheese
1-cup (2 sticks) butter,
cold
2 cups all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
1/3-cup sour cream
METHOD OF PREP:
1.
Cut cream cheese
into tablespoon-size pieces and let soften at room temperature. Cut butter into small pieces and keep in
refrigerator until ready to use.
2.
Combine flour,
salt, and butter into the food processor and process with brief pulses until
mixture resembles coarse meal.
3.
Add cream cheese
and sour cream, distributing evenly over the flour mixture.
4.
Process with
brief pulses until dough just holds together.
If dough is too dry, add 1 to 2 tablespoons of water.
5.
Wrap dough in
plastic wrap, press it together into a ball and flatten into a disk.
6.
Refrigerate
dough 4 hours before rolling, or up to 2 days.
Chocolate-Pecan Filling:
1 cup semisweet or
bittersweet chocolate chips (I used Ghirardelli, 60% bittersweet chocolate baking chips)
½ cup pecans, finely chopped
¼ cup butter, melted
METHOD OF PREP:
1.
Prepare dough.
2.
Lightly butter 2
or 3 baking sheets. Mix chocolate and
pecans together in a bowl.
3.
Divide dough
into 4 pieces. Keep remaining dough in
refrigerator.
4.
Place ¼ of dough
on a lightly floured surface. Using a
rolling pin, roll it into a circle that is about 1/8” thick. The dough will be very hard, so it is best to
first beat it down with a rolling pin.
It will loosen up as it comes to room temperature.
5.
Immediately
brush the dough with melted butter and sprinkle it with ¼ of the
pecan/chocolate mixture, pressing it lightly into the dough.
6.
Cut the dough
into 12 wedges.
7.
Roll each wedge
up, starting from the thickest end, until your form a crescent shape.
8.
Repeat the
rolling, topping and shaping process with the other three pieces of dough.
9.
Place the
Rugelach onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet.
10.
Refrigerate it
for 30 minutes (You can also freeze the Rugelach at this point for later use.)
11.
Bake the
Rugelach in a 350-degree oven for 18-20 minutes or until golden brown.
12.
Transfer to a
cooling rack and let cool completely.
13.
Enjoy!
RESULT:
Rugelach is one of my favorite Jewish delicacies. The filling and dough are both easy to make. However the cutting and rolling can be problematic. The original technique I found had the dough cut into squares and double rolling. The other recipe had the dough rolled into a semi-circle, cut into 12 wedges and roll from the wide end to the skinny end, similar to a croissant. I prefer the circle into wedges, it created a better final product with equal filling to dough ratio.
The final product, a mix of chocolate and pecan pieces, it complements the cream cheese dough. DELICIOUS!
