[bump]
Just got home, jet lagged as hell, and trying to fend off the ardent advances of my attention-starved cat, the noble Sir Galahad. With any luck, I’ll be able to stay up until 8 pm…work tomorrow should be absolutely hilarious.
So without further ado, the recipe some of you have been waiting for, from Gil Marks’ The World of Jewish Cooking: More than 500 Traditional Recipes from Alsace to Yemen (it’s never steered me wrong so far), p. 326 (I’m tired, so you’re on your own for any necessary metric conversions):
Rugelach (Ashkenazic Pastry Crescents): 32 large, 48 medium, or 64 small cookies
In 1793, Austrian bakers, in celebration of the lifting of a lengthy Turkish siege of Vienna, shaped various baked goods into crescents (kipferin), the emblem on the Ottoman flag. Rugelach (“little twists” in Yiddish) and yeast rugelach - also called Pressburger kipplach and Pozsonyi kifli - are all delicious examples of Austrian crescents. (This is also the origin of the croissant.) Americans seem to agree, for it has recently become very popular over here…[snip]
Dough:
1 cup (2 sticks or 8 oz.) butter, softened
8 oz. cream cheese, softened (or 2/3 cup sour cream and 1 egg yolk)
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
Filling:
1 cup finely chopped walnuts or pecans [IMNSHO walnuts are far more authentic]
1/2 cup dried currants or raisins (optional)
1/2 cup granulated sugar or brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
About 1 cup apricot, raspberry, or strawbery jam, orange marmalade, or 1/4 cup butter, melted [IMHO apricot and raspberry are most authentic, although you could also use other jams found in Central/Eastern Europe, such as plum, cherry, currant, etc.)
- To make the dough: Beat together the butter, cream cheese, and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the salt. Gradually beat in the flour.
- Divide into 4 equal portions, form into balls, wrap, and refrigerate overnight. (For quicker use, place in the freezer for about 1 hr. The dough can be frozen for up to 4 months.) Let the dough stand at room temperature until workable.
- Position a rack in the upper third of the oven. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
- On a lightly floured surface or pieces of waxed paper, roll out each piece of the dough into a 1/8" thick round about 15" in diameter.
- To make the filling: Combine the nuts, currants or raisins, if desired, sugar, and cinnamon. Brush the dough rounds lightly with the jam, marmalade, butter, or margarine, leaving a 1/2" border around the edges. Sprinkle evenly with the nut mixture.
- For large rugelach, cut each round into 8 wedges; for medium, cut into 12 wedges; for small, cut into 16 wedges. Roll up the edges from the wide end toward the point, pinching the point to seal. Gently bend to form crescents. (The rugelach can be prepared ahead to this point and frozen for several months. Defrost before baking.)
- Place the rugelach on ungreased baking sheets. [My tip: grease the baking sheets, and prepare to scrape off baked-on caramelized jam anyway.] Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes. Let the cookies stand until firm, about 1 minute, then transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely. Store in an airtight container at room temperature or in the freezer.
I’m not going to type out all the varioations, but one is worth bothering with…
Chocolate Rugelach [as if you needed to add to something that can already harden arteries at 50 paces]
Substitute 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder for the cinnamon and brush the dough rounds with the butter or margarine (not the jam).
Bon Appetit! or as my grandmother would say, Essen!
More later, except that I just have to add that the adorable 6-year-old daughter of my friends in France spent my entire stay in her pink My Little Pony gym shoes, or as the French call them, Mon Petit Poney…my friends couldn’t understand why I kept looking at her feet and cracking up. It’s all your fault…
