F estive crescent-shaped rugelach, made with cream-cheese enriched dough wrapped around a sweet, gooey filling, are a traditional Jewish treat and perfect for a Hanukkah celebration. Eager to find the best recipes and rugelach-making techniques, we spoke to several experts in the field: cookbook author and Beurre & Sel cookie pro Dorie Greenspan, baking teacher and Kosher Baker author Paula Shoyer, and Noah Bernamoff, one half of the team behind Brooklyn's Mile End Deli and co-author of The Mile End Cookbook.
But a funny thing happened during our interviews: Each and every time we asked about rugelach's connection to Hanukkah, we were met with confusion. Noah Bernamoff, who bakes his Nana Lee's recipe at Mile End, considers rugelach "an all-year dessert." Greenspan agrees, adding that she "would be happy to have rugelach for every holiday and non-holiday." We came closest with Shoyer, who points out that rugelach make sense for Hanukkah because after all those latkes, you don't necessarily want a big dessert. Still, she doesn't associate the two, and prefers to think of rugelach as "just a great Jewish dessert that deserves attention any time of year."
Only one person could clear up this Jewish holiday baking conundrum: Gil Marks, author of the Encyclopedia of Jewish Food. Marks explained that rugelach are often associated with Hanukkah because of the Book of Judith. As the story goes, when the Assyrian army was about to invade Jerusalem, Judith fed an Assyrian general copious amounts of salty cheese or milk, followed by gallons of wine. The general was then so intoxicated that Judith was able to behead him with his own sword. With no general, the invading army fled, and Judith's people were saved. Eating dairy during Hanukkah is about celebrating this miracle.
But there's a problem. According to Marks, Judith predates the Hanukkah period, and there was no relationship between Judith and the Maccabees. "It was a medieval mistake in assuming Judith to be of the Hanukkah era, and, in many instances, a relative of the Maccabees, that introduced the tradition of dairy and cheese to Hanukkah."
It may be based on a delicious misunderstanding, but we forged ahead, gathering baking tips from Bernamoff, Greenspan, and Shoyer. So whether for the Festival of Lights, another Jewish holiday, or just your average cookie break, read on for advice on making rugelach at home, plus ten great recipes.
Baking Tips:
❤Make Friends with Your Fridge (or Freezer)
Baking: From My Home to Yours author Dorie Greenspan insists rugelach is "one of the simplest doughs to make and work" and perfect for dough newcomers. She stresses the need to use cold, rather than room temperature, ingredients, and says, "The refrigerator is your best friend." Once the dough is made, thoroughly chill it before rolling it out. Paula Shoyer goes a step further and recommends chilling the dough in the freezer. The chilling, she explains, firms up the fat, making it easier to roll out, so you won't need to use as much flour. If the dough becomes sticky while you're rolling, cutting, or shaping it, simply chill it again.
In addition to chilling the unshaped dough, Bernamoff recommends chilling the rolled and shaped cookies before baking them in a preheated oven. This technique, he explains, helps the rugelach steam and puff up, and produces light and airy cookies.
❤Work Quickly But Gently
While you can certainly make rugelach dough by hand, our experts all prefer to use a food processor. The machine's speed and efficiency help keep the dough chilled. Process the dough until it forms what Greenspan calls moist clumps or crumbles. "Don't let it form a ball that rides along the blade," she says. "At that point the dough is overworked." You'll still be able to make rugelach, but it won't have its signature delicate, tender crumb.
❤Simplify Your Shape
Thanks to its elegant twisted shape and the slivers of filling that poke through, rugelach, says Greenspan, "looks so much more complicated than it is." When you're rolling the dough and forming it into crescents, "neatness and precision don't count." The crescents will look beautiful, even if you're not an experienced pro. But if all the rolling and shaping just seems too fussy, Shoyer's method is even simpler: She rolls the dough into a rectangle, spreads it with filling, then rolls it into a log, which she bakes and then slices. "I find this a lot easier," Shoyer explains, adding, "I also find you can keep more filling inside this way."
❤Be Creative with Fillings
There really is no one ultimate rugelach filling. At Mile End, the rugelach tend to be seasonal. Bernamoff says that when they discover beautiful fruit, they'll preserve it and use it in rugelach. Shoyer encourages home bakers to have fun and make these mini pastries your own. "If you really love strawberry jam and chocolate, make it with that, but if you really love pecans, apricot, and coconut, you can make it that way, too." Shoyer reports that when she teaches baking classes, no matter how many bowls of nuts, jams, dried fruit, and other fillings she sets out, just about everyone goes for chocolate.
Whichever filling you choose, Greenspan recommends chopping everything finely so it's easy to spread and roll up. And if using dried fruit, be sure it's moist and plump, because baking is only going to dry it out further. Overly shriveled fruit can be rehydrated in a bowl of hot tap water then drained and patted dry.
❤Experiment with Savory Fillings
Most rugelach dough contains little to no sugar, making these pastries equally good for savory fillings. Bernamoff thinks a lemon-poppy combination or honey and ricotta would be delicious, while Greenspan recommends red pepper jelly, piment d'Espelette, tapenade and pine nuts, or even a not-for-Hanukkah combination of bacon and cheese. For a savory take, see our recipe for Hazelnut and Olive Rugelach.
❤Fill with Caution
Your rugelach filling may be delicious, but if you use too much, it will ooze out, making for messy cookies and even messier baking pans. If you love filling, use Shoyer's rolled-log approach. Another trick that all our experts agree on is to line your baking pans with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat such as a Silpat. "No matter how careful you are, the filling is going to bubble over and may even burn around the edges of the cookies," says Greenspan. Breaking a little jam off the edges of your rugelach isn't a big deal, but scrubbing baking pans is a hassle you want to avoid.
❤Add a Final Flourish
While not at all mandatory, many recipes, including those from Bernamoff and Greenspan, call for brushing rugelach with an egg wash and sprinkling the cookies with sugar before baking. As Greenspan notes, this extra step is "unnecessary but pretty." Bernamoff finds that the egg wash helps the cookies develop a deeper outer browning, while the sugar lends "a sweet crunch." But, notes Bernamoff, if your filling is particularly sweet, you may want to skip the extra sugar dusting to keep the cookies balanced.
❤Make Rugelach in Stages
Unlike chocolate chip cookies that you just drop on a cookie sheet, rugelach do require some fussing, but "You can make this fabulous little pastry fit into your schedule," says Greenspan. Most fillings can be made in advance and chilled for several weeks. Greenspan warns against making the dough and refrigerating it for more than a day or so, because cream cheese dough has a tendency to develop little black spots. But if wrapped well, the dough can be frozen for a month or two. Another option is to roll out the dough, fill and shape the crescents, and then freeze them unbaked. When you're ready for cookies, let them defrost about 15 minutes before baking. Lastly, the cookies can be fully baked and frozen for one to two months. If you make log-style rugelach like Shoyer, rather than freezing individual rugelach, wrap and freeze the whole log and then defrost the log and slice it into cookies.
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