This is the second post in a series of blogs that centers around our holiday cookie selection. We pride ourselves on having not only great tasting cookies, but unique tastes for everyone's palate. Check out our holiday blog to see a list of the wonderful cookies you can choose from this season.
Today's cookie, if we want to call it that, is Rugelach. It can be spelled a variety of ways, and I will probably spell it at least two different ways in this blog. Not on purpose...folks who know me know I'm a horrible speller. But I make a mean Rugelach :)
Rugelah [or rugelakh, rugulach, rugalach, ruggalach, rogelach...]
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| Walnuts, raisins, cinnamon, and sugars fill these dainty desserts. |
This is another recipe I came upon almost by accident. Or obsessive compulsive behavior. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. And again I have to thank Food Network and more specifically Ina Garten of Barefoot Contessa. This is the second recipe in my holiday list from her and it's a favorite of John and I. In its most basic description, rugelah is a pastry dough filled with a filling and rolled into crescent shapes. Think of a croissant with sweet stuff rolled inside. Yum!
In the case of Ina's recipe, she does a few things that I love, adding to the depth and complexity of the taste of this dessert.
1. The dough is cream cheese based. I loooooove cream cheese. Seriously. I'll do a blog about my passion with [cream] cheese. Long story short: I love it so much and grew up with it in my house so often I put it on my french toast and waffles. Don't diss it until you try it. I know it's not for everyone--some people despise cream cheese! It must be a texture thing. Anyway...in this case the cream cheese adds a velvety creaminess to the dough. It bakes up nicely with a crispy outside and a decadent inside.
2. The filling relies on apricot preserves to adhere the sugar filling. When I first read this recipe, I vetoed it merely based on the apricots. Here's an instance where, like the cream cheese, I grew up with this in my home often. Whether preserves, dried, raw, or nectar, it was everywhere. But unlike cream cheese, I hated apricots. Eww. So glad I grew up for a moment and put that behind me to forge ahead with this dessert. The preserves as an almost tangy sweetness that compliments the filling.
3. The filling, which includes brown and white sugar, walnuts, raisins, and cinnamon, is so great with the dessert as a whole. There is the crunchy nuts, the chewy raisins, and a little spice from the cinnamon. All this in a sugar sweet filling atop apricot preserves, rolled in a magnificently creamy dough.
Excuse me while I wipe the drool off my face...
So to sum this little bad boy up--oh! That's another wonderful thing about this dessert/cookie. They are bite size. It's wonderful because it allows you to really savor the complexity and deliciousness of the dessert. And in my head it allows me to have more because, well, they are small.
To sum up our Rugelach, it's a cream cheese based dough filled with apricots, walnuts, raisins, cinnamon and sugar and rolled into little crescents. Adorable and delectable.
Don't let the name scare you. Or the cream cheese. Or the apricots. Or the raisins. They work together in a magical way. Trust me :)
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Because everyone needs a good dessert.
One love,
Sara's Sweets N Treats
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