Zoë's Baking Academy: Rugelach, Two Ways
Join me for another YouTube Live!
First and foremost, CONGRATULATIONS to our September Baking Academy winners: Elizabeth, Megan, Joanne, Luz, April, Sonia, Falecia, Jennifer, Tina, and Melissa, who have all been contacted and accepted their prizes! I loved seeing all of your cookies and finding out how much you’ve enjoyed participating in these monthly challenges. Now, on to this month!
Zoë’s Baking Academy: Rugelach Edition
When I hosted my last Zoë’s Baking Academy: YouTube Live, many of you asked for me to do it again, so please tune in THIS SUNDAY, Oct. 6 at 1 p.m. CT/2 p.m. ET, for another live event featuring rugelach. Gather your ingredients and save the date! Click the button below and make sure to tap the bell icon to get notified before the event starts.
Rugelach are delicious little pastry-like cookies with so much tasty filling inside, it spills out as it bakes and becomes caramelized (personally, my favorite part!). I vividly recall eating them as a child when I would visit my great-aunts in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.
The cookies originated in Jewish communities in Poland and there are many variations. Using equal parts cream cheese and butter creates a barely sweet dough that yields a soft and tender cookie.
Some people like their rugelach more pastry-like, so they use a puff pastry-style dough to create a flakier treat, sort of like a mini croissant. You will find a rough puff pastry recipe below! *A note to those who have Zoë Bakes Cookies, there is an error in the rugelach recipe that uses puff pastry. It suggests rolling the dough out to the wrong size. Not a catastrophe but the way I have written it in the recipe attached here is much easier to follow. I will be adding a YouTube Short of making the dough and using it for the cookies.
Either way you make them, they are a delightful rolled-up treat, filled with fruit preserves like apricot, raspberry, or cherry. They are sometimes paired with chocolate shavings or nuts — any kind will do, but make sure they are toasted for a deeper flavor. You can experiment with any number of savory options, like pesto or an olive tapenade (not my great-great-grandmother’s rugelach).
Rugelach with a simple to make cream cheese dough:
Zoë’s Baking Academy Details
Before October 31, bake my rugelach recipe. Don’t forget to snap a photo and/or video of yours.
Show us your bake! Tag me (@zoebakes) in an in-feed post on Instagram or Facebook (it’s hard to track Stories and we may miss them) and use the hashtag #zoebakesacademy and/or #zoebakes. If you don’t use social media or your account is private, you can still participate! Send an email to stephani@zoebakes.com with a photo to let us know you’re in.
For an additional entry into the giveaway, rate and review the recipe on ZoëBakes.com.
That’s it! We’ll randomly draw a winner on November 1 and announce it that week on social media and in this email as soon as the winner has accepted. The winner will receive a signed copy of Zoë Bakes Cookies and a Zoë Bakes Apron!
*Variation: Rugelach with Quick Puff Pastry
This is a quick version of the traditional laminated dough that can take hours to make. This one will take only 20 to 30 minutes. Use this puff pastry dough as an alternative to the rugelach dough if you want a flakier version. This version puffs up beautifully, although maybe slightly less than the traditional layered pastry. In this recipe, you'll turn the dough four times, until it is quite smooth and clean to work with.
Be sure to look for my YouTube Short, coming Saturday 10/5 on how to make this dough and use it in the rugelach recipe.
I can’t wait to make this later this week. I noticed that the recipe in the book (for the cream cheese dough) calls for an egg yolk that you omitted in the video. Does it work either way?
Thank you ! I can’t wait to try these.