The Rugelach That Won Over France – Tuesdays with Dorie

This was Eva and my first time making rugelach so of course, I searched google images to get a better idea of what we were setting out to create.
The images were enticing and we both were excited to make a new sweet treat. Once our eyes curiosity had been met, of course we then wondered where, in history, did rugelach originate? Yes, I’m one of those people who own books like A History of Food and The Deluxe Food Lover’s Companion  and those books have been known to take up residence on my nightstand. Silly, I know, but I have found myself laughing out loud to some of past superstitions.  So, of course, I am going to research the roots and cultures who brought this treat to us and to top it off, it’s a great teaching moment for homeschool.

My highlight from the research is learning that rugelach can be spelled so many ways. Sweet news to me so I can stop, rechecking how to spell this word once and for all!  Karen Hochman shares that it’s known to be spelled any number of ways; rugelah, rugalah, rugelach, rugalach, rugulah, ruggelach, and ruggalach. She also gives the best historical view into the land of the European Jewish pastries that I could find. If your interest is peeked even a little you should check it out here .

At first read, I noticed Dorie wrote of peanuts being part of her rugelach, that won over the Air France attendants so I set out peanuts, only later to frantically re-read again and again the ingredient list looking for the peanuts we missed. There are none in this recipe, instead Dorie calls for pecans. Since pecans are not my or any of my family’s favorite nut I swapped them for almonds.

I measured all ingredients meticulously but in the end, I was left with over a cup of unused filling.  I think we may not have rolled the dough thin enough. This was apparent because we only had one revolution making a circle and not multiple spiraling layers as we had seen on google images. We did find, using the Wilson pie mat, like a sushi mat, made the dough easier to roll allowing us to keep pressure on the nut mixture and prevent the dough from cracking. Now all we need to do is make more! Which we’ve already started and there’s another batch chilling in the fridge for later.

The finished product!

The texture combination of gooey interior, flakey exterior and crunch made these taste pretty good and yes, even this non-coconut lover had seconds!

If you would like to make these royal treats just like Dorie does you can find the recipe over at Leite’s Culinaria. If you would like to read about how this recipe worked for Dorie’s group Baking Chez Moi here’s the link, maybe you’ll want to join us? Before I finished making my rugelach, I found myself reading the groups posts and found Mardi’s experience to be super helpful thanks Mardi!

Happy Baking!

Next up for Tuesdays with Dorie is a Gingerbread Bûche de Noël.

Rachelle and Eva

p.s. This is unrelated to the post other than I would really like to figure out how to get my smaller photos to line up horizontally rather than vertically. On my edit page they show up beautifully sequentially left to right  If anyone has any info on how to do this I would love to know!  Merci.