Christmas//Rugelach

Merry Christmas!

I hope you enjoyed Christmas as much as I did. Although I didn't feel much of a holiday winter feeling, I had a blast spending copious amount of time with my parents. It was so relaxing.. lounging around the house playing chess or simply watching the tv together. The only crazy busy frustrating time was when I attempted to make rugelach for mini Christmas treats to pass out. Although the dough was made in advance, peeling them off the wax paper was a pain which caused me to work slower than I had expected. Rolling out the dough, spreading the filling, cutting triangles, and then rolling them up took me several hours. But what should I expect? I had quadrupled the recipe. I should have accepted the random offer from a friend to help make the rugelach... Expect it was probably just talk, would have been weird, and I would have gotten annoyed haha.

Just continuing on with making Jewish treats.

The rugelach had promised me to be absolutely delicious from recipes and comments I've read online. The few hours later when I tasted them, they left me sadly disappointed. It seemed to just be basically just pie crust rolled up with jam in the middle. I didn't enjoy the cinnamon sugar or the chocolate flavoured ones, they were just to plain. That night I had another rugelach which was filled with raspberry jam, almonds and dark chocolate. Oh man were they ever so good! Since I had a couple left at home the next day, I had them for breakfast. Some how they tasted far better the next day! But again only for the raspberry almond chocolate filled ones.. and this time the apricot jam, walnuts and cinnamon sugar.

The dough was simple.
1 cup of butter (softened)
8 oz of cream cheese
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp of vanilla
2 cups of flour

Whip the butter and creamcheese together until fluffy. Add the salt, sugar and vanilla and beat again. Mix in the flour until cumbly and ball can be made. Divide the dough into four balls. Roll into disks, wrap well and let it sit in the fridge for at least one hour.

You can roll in any kind of filling:
Jam with nuts and chocolate or cinnamon sugar is a good idea
I used raspberry jam - almonds - dark chocolate & apricot jam - chopped dried apricot - walnuts - cinnamon sugar.

Take the disks out from the fridge. Place one disk on your workspace and roll until the disk is 8 to 10 inches in diameter. Spread the filling on the entire side of the disk that is facing up (duh common sense?). Using a pizza cutter, cut the dough into 12 - 16 equal sized slices.  Roll from the shortest side of the triangle to the tip. Place the tip "seam" of rugelach on the bottom. Continue with the rest of the dough. Place them all on prepared baking sheets. Refrigerate for another hour if you want it to keep it's shape.

Preheat oven to 350'F. Take out the trays, brush with a beaten egg and dust with cinnamon sugar. Bake on the top 1/3 of the oven for 25 min. Let it cool before serving.

Chocolate filled just for my darling friend who does eat anything that has to do with fruits.
I'll still love you Gracie.