Rugelach
Why I Love This Recipe
These are delicious crescent cookies that are rich and flaky. You can fill them with either a walnut and sugar mix or a good thick homemade jam or combination of both.
Ingredients You'll Need
1 Package cream cheese softened
1 Cup butter softened
2 1/4 Cups flour
1 Cup ground walnuts
1/2 Cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, divided
3 Teaspoons ground cinnamon
4 Tablespoons Apricot jam
Directions
Beat the cream cheese and butter in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until creamy. Gradually add flour, mixing until blended. (Dough will be very soft.)
Divide dough into 4 portions; place each on sheet of plastic wrap. Pat each portion into 1-inch-thick circle, using floured hands. Wrap plastic wrap around each circle to enclose. Refrigerate several hours or overnight.
Preheat oven to 325°F.
Cover baking sheets with foil or parchment paper.
Mix walnuts, 1/2 cup of the sugar and 2 tsp. of the cinnamon; set aside.
Roll each portion of dough to 11-inch circle on lightly floured surface, lifting dough occasionally to add more flour to work surface as necessary.
Spread each circle evenly with 1 Tbsp. of the jam; sprinkle with nut mixture.
Cut each circle into 16 wedges(I use a pizza cutter for quick work of it).
Roll up each wedge, starting from short end.
Place, point sides down, on prepared baking sheets; shape into crescents.
Sprinkle with combined remaining 1 tsp. cinnamon and 2 Tbsp. sugar.
Bake 25 minutes or until lightly browned.
Immediately remove from baking sheets and cool on wire rack.
Makes 64 cookies(if you want larger cookies cut into 8 slices instead of 16 per sheet of dough).
You can omit the walnut sugar mix in the cookie or make it just walnut sugar mix. I have done this and added a few sultana raisins to each cookie before rolling. Try using a good plum jam by itself as filling.
Note: Most store bought jams will get very "watery" and melt out of cookies so best to use a good quality jam, that is nice and thick.