I had never been much of a rugelach baker until this recipe. While I gravitated towards challah and babka, I always found store-bought rugelach to be a bit bland and disappointing.
But to my great delight, rugelach are supremely easy to make. Most recipes rely on a 1:1 ratio of butter and cream cheese in the dough for flavor and flakiness. I stick with that classic method (donāt mess with perfection!) but also add a bit of sour cream for an extra tender texture. The dough comes together in seconds with the help of a mixer (or food processor) and after a short rest, itās ready to be rolled out. But donāt forget to rest and chill your dough!
These rugelach are perfect for spring, for Shavuot or just because homemade rugelach are delicious.
Note: These will store well in an airtight container for up to 1 week at room temperature, and will freeze well for up to 3 months.
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Strawberry and Cream Rugelach
- Total Time: 1 hour 25 minutes
- Yield: 16
Ingredients
For the dough:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cubed
- 1 Ā½ tsp fine sea salt
- Ā½ lb cream cheese, chilled and cubed
- 2 Tbsp sour cream
- ā cup sugar
- 1 egg, lightly beaten
- raw sugar, for decorating
For the strawberry filling:
- Ā¾ cups good strawberry jam
- 2 Tbsp sour cream
- 3 ounces cream cheese
- 2 Tbsp sugar
- Ā½ tsp pure vanilla extract
- pinch salt
- 1 tsp lemon juice
Instructions
- Add your cubed butter and flour to your mixer with the paddle and attachment and mix until the butter is broken up well and the mixture looks like wet sand.
- To the mixing bowl, add in the salt, cream cheese, sour cream and sugar. With the paddle attachment on medium speed, mix everything together quickly, until the mixture is crumbly, wet and mostly coming together.
- Turn the dough out onto a sheet of foil, press down on it slightly, and form the dough into a thick disk. Wrap the disk tightly in the foil, and chill in the refrigerator for one hour.
- Make the filling: using stand mixer fitted with paddle, beat sour cream, cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and salt on low speed until smooth, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add 1/4 teaspoon of lemon juice, and mix to combine.
Taste filling ā add more juice if needed. Transfer to a bowl, cover with plastic, and refrigerate until ready to use. - When your dough has chilled, preheat your oven to 375Ā°FĀ and line a few baking trays with parchment paper.
- Sprinkle the parchment paper with some raw sugar.
- Remove the dough from the fridge and unwrap the dough. Flour your work surface extremely well, roll the dough into a ball, then press it down until itās about Ā¾-inch thick. The sides may crack a bit at first, but just keep working it until you have a smooth sided disk, adding more flour as needed.
- Roll the dough out into a 13-14 inch circle of even thickness.
- Fold the dough into a half-moon and use a pizza cutter or sharp knife to cut away any uneven sides, as you want the circle to be as symmetrical as possible for even cookies. Unfold the dough so itās a full circle again.
- Brush the dough with the cheese filling and then top with the strawberry jam. Swirl the jam over the cheese.
- Use a pizza cutter or sharp knife to cut the circle into 16 equal-sized wedges.
- Roll each wedge up, starting with the bigger side, tightly and carefully, to make the classic rugelach shape. Place the rugelach seam side down onto your parchment.
- Brush each cookie with egg wash and sprinkle with raw sugar.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes, rotating the trays halfway through baking, until the cookies are a nice, golden brown. Allow to cool before moving and serving.
Notes
These will store well in an airtight container for up to 1 week at room temperature, and will freeze well for up to 3 months.
- Prep Time: 1 hour
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Category: Dessert
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: Basics
I have been a baker for more than 50 years and wrote a best-seller book of muffin recipes in the 1980s. (“The Muffin Baker’s Guide”).
I will try this recipe soon, but just wanted to provide a caution on flour. I recently made a batch of rugelach, based on a previous Nosher recipe, but this time only had a bag of gluten-free flour for baking use for a relative who cannot tolerate gluten. The outcome was technically a disaster. The dough triangles would not fold smoothly, but kept cracking as I tried to roll it around the filling. All I could do in the end was to squeeze the filled dough into blocks to close all the cracks. No resemblance to rugelach! The finished product expanded to one large mass of a dozen connected blocks, with some defining lines between the blocks that I could follow to cut them apart. The dough was dry, but edible, despite the amount of cream cheese, sour cream and butter that I used.