Rugelach is a chocolatey pastry invented by Ashkenazi Jews in Poland during the 1680s. The word rugelach is Yiddish for “little twists,” and is pronounced like roo-guh-lahkh. Over the years, rugelach spread among Jews worldwide, resulting in many variations–some more traditional than others.
Traditional Israeli rugelach is a croissant-like pastry filled with chocolate. Other variations include fillings such as jams, cinnamon, poppy seeds, and nuts as well as different types of dough including yeast, cream cheese, and sour cream. Many American versions of rugelach are more cookie-like pastries, which many Jews argue aren’t actually rugelach.
One day after work, my friend Caileigh and I made rugelach together. The process started with the dough, made by combining flour, sugar, yeast, salt, and eggs in a stand mixer with a paddle attachment. While mixing we slowly added the milk. Once combined, we switched to the dough hook and added butter, a little at a time. After mixing the dough needed to rest for 60-90 minutes.
While the dough rested, we prepared the filling by whisking together room-temperature butter, cocoa powder, melted dark chocolate, salt, and powdered sugar. During this time, it was very important to watch Twilight and eat bagels.
After the dough had rested, we rolled it out and spread the filling evenly on top, leaving a 1-inch border on the edges. We folded the dough in half and cut it into triangles, then rolled each triangle from the wide end to the narrow tip to create the croissant-like, rugelach shape.
The shaped rugelach was placed on a baking sheet and rested for another 60-90 minutes. Giving us enough time to finish Twilight. Once the rugelach had doubled in size we baked them for 25-30 minutes and brushed with simple syrup for a glossy finish.
Making rugelach may have taken four hours but it was a lot of fun especially because I did it with one of my best friends.
