By Julia Moskin
- Total Time
- 1 hour 30 minutes
- Rating
- 4(73)
- Notes
- Read community notes
Once upon a time, good Jewish housewives (known as balaboostas in Yiddish) all knew how to make pastries like strudel, rugelach and schnecken from scratch, using a cream-cheese-enriched dough supposedly stretched thin enough that you could read the newspaper through it. This was a day’s work, but with the arrival of good-quality puff pastry on the market, modern bakers can quickly (“aylenish” in Yiddish) produce this close cousin: a sweet, fragrant filling of nuts, spices and dried fruit wrapped in rich dough. Orange marmalade gives a tart undertone (and the faintest suggestion of a Christmas fruitcake), but apricot or raspberry jam are also considered classic.
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Ingredients
Yield:About 4 dozen
- ¼cup plus 2 tablespoons/55 grams golden raisins
- ¼cup/60 milliliters rum (optional)
- 2tablespoons/25 grams granulated sugar, plus more for sprinkling
- 2tablespoons/30 grams dark brown sugar
- ¼teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ⅛teaspoon ground nutmeg, preferably fresh
- ½cup/60 grams chopped toasted walnuts
- Salt
- 1cup/340 grams orange marmalade
- About 1 pound/500 grams puff pastry
- 1egg yolk, whisked with a splash of milk or water
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (48 servings)
91 calories; 4 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 2 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 12 grams carbohydrates; 0 grams dietary fiber; 7 grams sugars; 1 gram protein; 52 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
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Preparation
Step
1
Soak raisins in rum and ½ cup very hot water. In a medium bowl, combine both sugars, cinnamon, nutmeg, walnuts and a pinch of salt. Drain raisins (discard soaking liquid) and mix them into sugar mixture. In a saucepan, melt marmalade until runny. Remove any large chunks orange peel.
Step
2
Cut about a 4-ounce piece of puff pastry and roll out on a floured board into a rectangle, about 17 inches by 7½ inches. The pastry should be thin and supple enough to drape, but not so thin that holes start to appear when rolling.
Step
3
Brush a 2½-inch-wide stripe of marmalade down the long center of the rectangle. Sprinkle marmalade with filling and fold top edge down over filling. Brush the top of filled section with marmalade and sprinkle marmalade with filling. Fold bottom edge up over the filling to make a kind of flattened roll; do not press. Cut in half crosswise and refrigerate rolls for 20 to 30 minutes, or freeze for 10 to 15 minutes.
Step
4
Heat oven to 375 degrees; use the convection setting if you have it. Cut rolls across into ½-inch-wide slices. Place slices, seam side down, on baking sheet lined with parchment paper or nonstick liners. Brush tops with egg yolk and sprinkle with sugar.
Bake 20 to 25 minutes, until golden brown and puffed. Let cool slightly before removing to a cooling rack. Meanwhile, repeat with remaining pastry and filling. Store at room temperature in layers separated by parchment paper, in airtight containers.
Ratings
4
out of 5
73
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Cooking Notes
Kim G.
It really doesn't take all day to make the basic rugelach dough. Find the basic recipe on the NYT cooking web site. Make it in the evening in your food processer or with an electric mixer; divide into 4 balls, wrap in plastic and put it in the frig over night. In the morning you are ready to go. The filling in this recipe is delicious and different.
Meg
Walnuts add body, but it works fine without walnuts. Parchment or wax paper is a must
gracecl
Used dried currants soaked in brandy instead of raisins. Wonderful.
Chantelle
Used soaked dates instead of marmalade & pecans. Used coarse sugar on top
Judy L.
This recipe sounds delicious, but I wonder the real yield. Using 1/4 of puff pastry per batch, at 17" wide, and cut into 1/2" pieces, that's ~30 pieces per batch, X 4 batches = 10 dozen, not 4 dozen. Either the pieces you cut are wider than 1/2", the original puff pastry length should be less than 17" wide, or some other reason. I cook a lot and help a cookbook author with recipe write-up, so I get frustrated with sloppy recipes, which don't help amateur cooks.
Dr. Ichiban
I think the recipe intends you to roll it longways, up the 17” length, and cut it into 1/2 inch pieces across the 7 1/2 inch width. This would result in 15 pieces per 1/4 of puff pastry, so 60 pieces total. The yield would be about 5 dozen, rather than the recipe’s stated 4 dozen, or your calculated 10 dozen. Hope this helps!
Meg
Walnuts add body, but it works fine without walnuts. Parchment or wax paper is a must
Kim G.
It really doesn't take all day to make the basic rugelach dough. Find the basic recipe on the NYT cooking web site. Make it in the evening in your food processer or with an electric mixer; divide into 4 balls, wrap in plastic and put it in the frig over night. In the morning you are ready to go. The filling in this recipe is delicious and different.
Roni Jordan
Agree completely. I have a dried fruit filling left over from a Harvest tart recipe and plan to use it with my traditional rugelach cream-cheese dough. Easy!
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