Even though there’s Christmas decorations up in every store and Christmas music playing on the radio, what about those who celebrate Hanukkah? That’s what this post is all about, a little taste of Hanukkah. I got the idea for this while watching the new episode of Holiday Baking Championship, where the main heat challenge was to update the traditional rugelach, using whatever ingredient they picked. I had never heard of rugelach, so I decided to do some research and try out a batch for myself and let me tell you, they’re delicious. Instead of the traditional filling of apricot jam, granulated sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, walnuts, and raisins, I chose to go the same route as one of the bakers on the show and use peanut butter as my filling but I also added some chocolate chips. What goes together better than chocolate and peanut butter? Now onto the recipe!

Here’s the recipe I used if you want to try it out for yourself: Rugelach

The only change I made was with my choice of filling.

Ingredients:

Makes 4 dozen cookies

• 8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature*
• 2 sticks butter, at room temperature*
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 cups flour

** Using the cream cheese and butter at room temperature makes it easier to cream the two together. It also kind of speeds up the process a little since both ingredients are already soft.

Start by adding the cream cheese and butter to the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (as always, you can use a hand mixer if you want.) Cream the two together until light and fluffy like in the picture below.

 Now it’s time to add the sugar, salt, and vanilla and mix until combined. Then with the mixer on low-speed add the flour and mix until flour is fully incorporated, like in the picture below.

Once your dough looks like this, dump it out onto a well floured surface and work it into a ball. Be sure to flour your hands when you do this, because the dough is pretty sticky and it will stick to your hands. Nobody wants hulk hands when they’re baking! It makes baking that much more difficult!

When your dough looks like the picture above, it’s time to divide it into four pieces. I like to do this with a bench scraper, that’s the orange handled thing beside the dough ball. It’s not sharp like a knife, but it does the job just as well. Mine aren’t exactly even, but they still worked out pretty well.

Wrap them all tightly in plastic wrap and chill for 1 hour, no more no less.

While the little dough balls chill, it’s time to clean up the mess (if you’re anything like me, all the dirty bowls and other tools just pile up in the sink, while your work surface is covered in flour.) Once that’s all taken care of, get the stuff needed for your filling ready to go.

Ingredients (for the filling): 

• 1 cup peanut butter
• 1/4 cup chocolate chips

To make the peanut butter easier to spread on the dough, I microwaved it in 15 second intervals, stirring in between each one until it had melted slightly.

Next, take one of the dough balls from the fridge and roll it out on a lightly floured surface. To keep the dough from sticking as you roll it out, only roll from the center out in one motion, and rotate the dough a quarter turn before you continue to roll it out. I still need practice rolling out a dough circle, as you can see!

When your dough is rolled out, it’s time to spread the peanut butter (or apricot jam). Add 2 tbsp into the center of the dough and spread it out nice and evenly leaving just enough room at the outer edges to roll them up. But I didn’t stop there, I added some of the chocolate chips on top. I did some of them with only peanut butter, in case somebody wanted just plain peanut butter.

 

 

Now to get that classic rugelach shape, I took a pizza cutter and cut my dough into 8 pieces. Cut the dough once into quarters and then cut each quarter into 3 pieces.

 

Not all of my pieces were equally shaped, but then again, it helps if the dough is rolled out into an even circle to begin with. Take each piece and starting at the wide end roll the dough up making sure the point is on the bottom so they don’t unroll during baking. Then place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, repeat this process until all four dough balls are rolled out, filled, cut, rolled up and on the cookie sheets. Be sure to keep at least an inch of space between them when placing them on the cookie sheets, so that the heat can circulate evenly around and between each of the rugleach.

Now it’s time to chill them one more time but only for 30 minutes this time around. This helps them keep their shape while baking. While the rugelach are chilling in the fridge, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F and prepare an egg wash using 1 egg and 1 tbsp milk. combine those using a fork, then set aside along with a pastry brush while you get your pans from the fridge. Now brush a little bit of the egg wash over each one. I did, however, forget one step and I didn’t realize it until I had already put them in the oven, You’re supposed to sprinkle a mixture of 3 tbsp sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon over the cookies after they’re brushed with the egg wash.

Bake the rugelach for 15-20 minutes, until lightly browned.

Don’t they look delicious? They taste amazing, and texture-wise, it’s like a cross between sugar cookie dough and pie crust. The plain peanut butter rugelach could have used a bit of sweetness from the cinnamon sugar on top. I just need to work on making my dough look a little more circular when rolling it out.  Either way, they still taste really good. I think I will try making the traditional rugelach with the apricot jam next time!

Until next time,

Peace, Love, and Sugar, 

Brooke