Makesabout 44 cookies
- Active time:40 min
- Start to finish:9 3/4 hr (includes chilling dough)
ADAPTED FROM PHYLLIS ROBERTS, MONSEY, NY
May 2004
My mother’s inspiration for these traditional Jewish cookies came from her great-grandmother, who owned a small Catskills hotel. Even after Bubbe Sarah retired, she’d turn out enough rugelach to feed a hotel full of people. —Melissa Roberts-MatarThis is just one of Gourmet
’s Favorite Cookies: 1941-2008. Although we’ve retested the recipes, in the interest of authenticity we’ve left them unchanged: The instructions below are still exactly as they were originally printed. Learn how to roll out thin cookie dough—with no mess and no extra flour.
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2
cups
all-purpose flour
-
1/2
teaspoon
salt
-
2
sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
-
8
oz
cream cheese, softened
-
1/2
cup
plus 4 teaspoons sugar
-
1
teaspoon
cinnamon
-
1
cup
apricot preserves or raspberry jam
-
1
cup
loosely packed golden raisins, chopped
-
1 1/4
cups
walnuts (1/4 lb), finely chopped
-
Milk for brushing cookies
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Whisk together flour and salt in a bowl. Beat together butter and cream cheese in a large bowl with an electric mixer until combined well. Add flour mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until a soft dough forms. Gather dough into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap, then flatten (in wrap) into a roughly 7- by 5- inch rectangle. Chill until firm, 8 to 24 hours.
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Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. Line bottom of a 1- to 1 1/2-inch-deep large shallow baking pan with parchment paper.
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Cut dough into 4 pieces. Chill 3 pieces, wrapped in plastic wrap, and roll out remaining piece into a 12- by 8-inch rectangle on a well-floured surface with a floured rolling pin. Transfer dough to a sheet of parchment, then transfer to a tray and chill while rolling out remaining dough in same manner, transferring each to another sheet of parchment and stacking on tray.
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Whisk 1/2 cup sugar with cinnamon.
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Arrange 1 dough rectangle on work surface with long side nearest you. Spread 1/4 cup preserves evenly over dough with offset spatula. Sprinkle 1/4 cup raising and a rounded 1/4 cup walnuts over jam, then sprinkle with 2 tablespoons cinnamon sugar.
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Using parchment as an aid, roll up dough tightly into a log. Place, seam side down, in lined baking pan, then pinch ends closed and tuck underneath. Make 3 more logs in same manner and arrange 1 inch apart in pan. Brush logs with milk and sprinkle each with 1 teaspoon of remaining granulated sugar. With a sharp large knife, make 3/4-inch-deep cuts crosswise in dough (not all the way through) at 1-inch-intervals. (If dough is too soft to cut, chill until firmer, 20 to 30 minutes.)
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Bake until golden, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool to warm in pan on a rack, about 30 minutes, then transfer logs to a cutting board and slice cookies all the way through.
