Must do more baking!! (and other cookery)

[Kittish]

I've found a recipe that looks intriguing, rugelach. I'm going to be making a couple of batches tonight, one with chocolate filling and one with apple filling. I'm also giving some consideration to making one with cherry filling (and use up the cherry preserves I've got in the fridge).

I've also got beans soaking for a pot of red beans and rice (nom nom nom), that'll probably last me a week or so since boyfriend won't eat it. And either tonight or tomorrow night I'm also going to get a big batch of red sauce going (boyfriend's family recipe), which if I make a double batch will also wind up lasting a week or so, even with both of us eating it.

And then it's also about time for me to make another attempt at getting my tahini sunflower cookies soft and moist. The base recipe has great flavor, but the cookies are a bit on the dry side (think pecan sandies). Tasty, but most of the people who've tried them say they would prefer a softer, chewy cookie. I've tried a couple of ways of getting them softer, but it didn't work out as well as I'd hoped.

[Jester]

As someone who grew up in a Jewish family (well, with Jewish relatives, anyway...my parents both ran screaming from the religion, and I don't remember a time in my childhood where we didn't eat bacon or ham, or keep kosher in any way), I am very familiar with rugelach. And I definitely recommend going with cherry as well....I have fond memories of them myself. Although they were only an occasional thing for me, as we would only have them at relatives' houses, or occasionally out and about about various delis and restaurants, as my Mom never baked or bought them.

Actually, about the only traditionally Jewish food we regularly had in the house were rye bread and bagels, and occasionally matzoh. Most of the Jewish food I ever tried I tried first at my Grandma's house.

[Kittish]

Heaven in a bowl...



ETA: Well, those aren't going to hang around very long. Just tried one of the first set of rugelach to come out of the oven. I wound up doing cherry vanilla, apple cinnamon and dark chocolate fillings.

[XCashier]

Just tried one of the first set of rugelach to come out of the oven. I wound up doing cherry vanilla, apple cinnamon and dark chocolate fillings.

If it's good, please post the recipe!

[Kittish]

The recipe for the dough I got from The Cupcake Project, who got it from someone else. Here it is:

8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour

Cream together the cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes with an electric mixer).
Mix in the sugar, salt, and vanilla.
Mix in the flour until just combined.
Turn the dough out onto a floured board (or counter, or mat) and form it into a ball.
Divide the dough into 4 roughly equal pieces, wrap each in plastic, and refrigerate for at least one hour.

To assemble:
Remove one of the wrapped sections of dough from the refrigerator.
Roll out into roughly a 9 inch circle. This dough is sticky (boy, is it ever!), so be sure to flour your surface and your rolling pin really well.
Spread 1/4 cup of your filling over the dough, being sure to evenly distribute it. Leave just a little rim of uncovered dough around the edge of your circle.
Cut the circle into quarters. Then cut the quarters into thirds as if you were cutting a pizza (I even used a pizza cutter). You'll end up with 12 roughly even wedges.
Roll up each wedge, starting with the wider edge of the wedge.
Place the rugelach on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or a Silpat.
Repeat for the other 3 sections of dough.
Chilled the formed rugelach for 30 minutes in the refrigerator or for about 10 minutes in the freezer (this helps them hold their shape).

To bake:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.
Remove rugelach from the refrigerator or freezer.
Beat one large egg in a small bowl, and brush each pastry with the egg.
Sprinkle sugar on the rugelach.
Bake for 20 minutes or until the rugelach is golden brown. It may take longer than 20 minutes (mine have been taking about 25 minutes fresh from the fridge) if your rugelach are particularly cold. Be careful not to undercook them, make sure they reach a lovely golden brown color.

For the fillings, I kind of made them up as I went along. The original blog post I cribbed the dough recipe from used a chocolate cheesecake filling.

The cherry vanilla is just store bought cherry preserves (left from Christmas baking) that I cooked down by about 1/3, smashed the cherries into bits and added vanilla extract to. The apple filling is 5 apples, peeled and cored then diced into small pieces, cooked with about half a cup of brown sugar and cinnamon and nutmeg added to taste (and I've got LOTS of that left still). The chocolate filling is a bar of dark chocolate chopped up fine and spread over the dough before rolling it.