Whether cooked or not, these cookies freeze wonderfully. Delicious and incredibly delicate cookie. You could consider sprinkling coarse sugar on top.
| Servings: | 24 |
| Yield: | 2 dozen |
Ingredients
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ½ cup unsalted butter, chilled
- 4 ounces cream cheese, cold
- ¾ cup apricot jam
- ¼ cup white sugar
- ½ cup toasted and chopped almonds
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- 1 egg
- ⅓ cup chopped almonds
- ⅓ cup sifted confectioners’ sugar
Instructions
- To Make Pastry: Place the flour in a bowl. Cut the butter into the flour and blend until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Cut the cream cheese into small cubes and rub into the flour-butter mixture. Knead until the dough forms a ball. Cut dough in half, wrap each half in plastic wrap and refrigerate.
- To Make Filling: Stir the apricot jam until it is spreadable. In a bowl combine the sugar with the chopped nuts and grated lemon peel.
- To Assemble: On a lightly floured surface roll out each half of dough. The larger and thinner the circle the crisper the cookies will be. Each circle should be at least 9 inches in diameter. Spread each circle with jam and sprinkle with the almond mixture.
- Cut each circle into twelve wedges. Roll each wedge up tightly from the outside edges. Turn edges slightly to form a crescent. Place crescents on a parchment lined baking sheet about 1 inch apart. Repeat until all cookies are shaped.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
- Beat egg and brush cookies with beaten egg. Sprinkle with nuts. Bake cookies for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown. Let cookies cool on wire wracks then dust with sifted confectioners’ sugar.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 136 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 15 g |
| Cholesterol | 23 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Protein | 2 g |
| Saturated Fat | 4 g |
| Sodium | 22 mg |
| Sugars | 8 g |
| Fat | 8 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I’ve just taken these out of the oven and wanted to rate them before I forgot. This is the first time I’ve made Rugelach, and I’ve never tasted one, so all of this is based on having no idea what they should actually be like. The recipe was simple to make, and the end result is tasty. The dough has a nice tangy flavor to it, and the filling is sweet and tart. I didn’t read the directions well enough, so I ended up mixing the jelly with the nuts and sugar, this meant I had to get them off the pan quick, or they’d get welded there. I’m not sure if it’ll be different if I do the jam separate, as called for. I’ll try to remember to update when I make them for a family gathering in a few days time. The dough was easier to work with on a floured counter than on a mat made to keep dough from sticking. Once it starts to get warm under your fingers it doesn’t want to hold its shape, so work fast. All in all, I’m very happy with it, and I feel like you could fill it with a billion different things. My kids love crescent rolls for breakfast, so it’s cool to know that I can make this dough up in a snap!
Didn’t have success with these. The dough was really hard to deal with. Had to flour the counter and freeze it. When baking, the apricot preserve came out. I had plenty of preserve and almond left so I don’t think I used too much. Tastes pretty good except dough tastes a little raw. This isn’t a recipe for beginners like myself. I’ll certainly use barely any filling next. time. I took a pic of my disaster.
I loved this recipe !!!!!I didn’t change anything at all…..
These are really tasty, although they’re a bit of work. I don’t think as much filling is needed, since a lot of it squeezed out when I was rolling the cookies, and more of it oozed out and burned on the parchment while baking. The almonds should be very finely chopped, as these are little cookies! I also cut the rounds with a pizza cutters as suggested in another review, and it worked very well. I’ll try this again! Thanks!
I love this recipe but do not like Apricot or the lemon in them, SO I use the basic pastry recipe, substituted Rasberry Jam- you can use seedless or seeded. I find the seeded Jams Ooze less our of the cookie. I omit the almonds in one of my batches since my kids don’t like the nuts. (it makes them easier to roll) After I roll the cookie I roll the it prior to baking in Demerara Washed Raw Cane Sugar which gives the cookie that sweetness with a little crunch. Everyone seems to rave over that little extra step. As with one other reviewer here… I ALWAYS bake on parchment with these cookies or if you can use a silpat mat if you have- the cookies lift right off of the paper.
This is absolutely delicious. It’s best to bake them on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet because the filling does ooze out during baking. This will save you a lot of clean up time. I omit the lemon rind because I find it distracting. If you use a food processor to make the dough it is lightning fast. Make extra and keep it in the freezer.
This was one of the best I’ve ever had! Maxine
Easy to make and delicious!
Delicious recipe and not too hard to make even though there are several steps. One thing that the recipe did not make clear is which nuts to use inside and which to use outside. I used the toasted ones inside since the baking would toast the untoasted ones on the outside. Also, 1/2 cup of jam is plenty for the filling. 20 minutes was the perfect baking time in my oven.
I loved this cookie. Doubling the recipe was a must, and next time I would add a little sugar to the pastry to insure a little sweeter flavor.
These are my secret weapon over the holidays. The dough freezes well, and once you get the hang of rolling out the dough, you can actually make them fairly quickly. Hint: try mini chocolate chips and rasberry preserves. delish.
perfect cookie for guests. Followed directions exactly (which is something I mistakenly don’t do!!) and was extremely pleased with the result. Makes me want to keep on baking. Success breeds success!
the dough, which i believe is an integral part of a ruggulach recipem was not very good. because it did not call for any sugar or spices, it was somewhat tart and did not have a very good flavour, nor was it melt-in-your-mouth. i suppose the type of apricot jam you use also plays amajor role in the success of this recipe. i used E.D. Smith and was not impressed. also, the length of time to which the dough needed to be refrigerated was not specified. perhaps that also affects the quality of the pastry, but we’ll never know.
Awesome!!! It was a perfect addition to my dessert platter. Thank you for a new dessert that everyone enjoyed.
My daughter recommended this recipe highly. I too, give it a 5* rating. Many other traditional Rugalach fillings can be used as well. What a treat!
A lot of the filling ran out of the cookie when baked. I sprinkled with confectioners sugar to try to make them look a little better. They did taste wonderful though. I found them to be very delicate and had to leave them on the parchment paper for a while as not to break from moving. I baked for about 13 min. They tasted better several hours later than right out of the oven. Thanks Bonnie
Fantastic! I made this a no sugar added recipe for my husband by substituting Splenda for the sugar. No one could tell it was no sugar added!
I made 2 batches of these about a week and a half ago and froze them. I baked them today and you were right. They were very good. Plan to do again. Thanks! :-)))))
Fabulous cookies, I added chopped dried apricots to the jam and heat it to soften the apricots. Thanks for the recipe – its so easy to make these
This is very good! Definitely will be on my Christmas baking list.
These wonderful cookies are the closest thing to my Austrian grandmother’s (Oma) recipe. In addition to the apricot, she would also use a prune and an all nut filling. I hear Christmas bells when I think of little treats! Thanks Bonnie!