Sometime during the first year of my marriage, I visited my mother-in-law in her kitchen. There she was, listening to the radio, whistling (she is a formidable whistler), and rolling cream-cheese dough around raisins and nuts to form the crescent-shaped cookies known as rugelach. I was spellbound — I’d had no idea that rugelach could be made at home. As far as I knew, rugelach, like ketchup or ships-in-bottles, were made only in laboratories. But here was my mother-in-law shaping the cookies with ease. And a short time later, there I was, eating them with ease. These cookies weren’t like the rugelach my mother bought every week at the local German bakery — they were much better. I was so excited I asked for the recipe.
My mother-in-law wrote it out in her precise hand on a 3-by-5 index card. And, as she wrote, she told me that this recipe was not exactly the same as the one her mother used, that it had come from Mrs. Strauss, her next-door neighbor, and that she was sure I’d have no problem making the cookies as long as I didn’t overmix the dough. She was right. I was a newcomer to the world of baking, but I had no problem with the dough, the only potentially tricky part of the process.
Since then, I’ve made rugelach countless times, but nowadays my dough is even more foolproof because I make it in a food processor. I’ve also made a few other changes to the recipe. While my mother-in-law’s rugelach were filled with cinnamon-sugared nuts, mine also include a slick of jam, some currants, and a handful of chopped chocolate. This is a very old recipe, and I have no doubt that everyone who has made it has added or subtracted a little bit to make it her own — and my mom-in-law, Mrs. Strauss, and I expect you to do the same.–Dorie Greenspan
Dorie Greenspan's Rugelach
Ingredients
Email Grocery List- For the dough
- For the filling
- For the glaze
Directions
Recipe Testers Reviews
Have you ever tried a Dorie Greenspan recipe that wasn’t delicious? The dough was super easy to work with and her suggestions on what to fill the rugelach with allowed a lot of flexibility. I tended to veer away from her suggested jams (I used apple butter) and fillings (I used raisins), based on what I had in my cupboard. The results were yummy, to say the least.
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For years I’ve used the same recipe (Ina Garten) and this year I tried Dorie’s. The big difference is no sugar in the dough and half the cream cheese. The dough is easier to work with. They came out perfectly and the idea of raw or coarse sugar was inspired. They were easier to roll into crescents which has always been a bit of a challenge. I baked them frozen and yes, they took a little longer, but kept their shape better.
Ellen, those look amazing!!!!
These were delicious and very simple to make. The filling was also wonderful; I like that it had a little bit of everything – jam, chocolate, nuts, cinnamon. I didn’t shape into crescents, though. Just rolled into a log, filled, and sliced into cookies. Definitely a recipe that will be repeated!
You can never go wrong with a Dorie recipe, right, Iris?! (Or, for that matter, with any of our recipes, since we test them over and over again in our home kitchens prior to deciding if they’re spectacular enough to share on our site. We actually don’t publish close to half the recipes we test because they’re not sufficiently magnificent.) So happy to hear this recipe found a home in your cookie repertoire. Love that you took a shortcut and appreciate you taking the time to share your trick with us! Wishing you and yours all the magic of the season…