Rugulach is a traditional Jewish dessert that originates in Eastern Europe and has been popularized by Jewish style delis and bakeries throughout the country.  Rugulach is a cross between a pastry and a cookie.  The most common rugulach fillings are chocolate and cinnamon, but you can fill rugulach dough with any flavored jam or spread your heart desires. In this case, that’s raspberry jam! 

Raspberry Rugelach

Recipe Yields 4 dozen Rugulah

Dough: 
1 1/2 Cups / 3 sticks / 339g butter, softened
12 oz/ 339g / cream cheese, softened
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cups (95g) sugar
2 1/4 cups (339g) Blends by Orly Manhattan Blend
1/2 tsp salt

Filling: 
Raspberry jam

1 egg yolk for eggwash
coarse sugar for topping

Heat: Preheat oven to 350°F.  Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

Mix: 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 sugar, eggs and vanilla and beat together until creamy and well mixed.  Add flour mixture and mix all ingredients together until very soft and velvety dough forms.  Flour your work surface and powder your hands with Manhattan Blend to prevent the dough from sticking to the table while you roll.  Gather dough into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap, then flatten with the palm of your hand and chill until firm, at least 1 hour.

Shape: Remove dough from the fridge and cut into 4 equal pieces. On a floured surface, and working one piece of dough at a time, use a non stick rolling pin and roll out dough into a 12-inch by 4-inch strip. Leaving a 1/2 inch border, spread the raspberry jam onto the dough so that it covers the surface and gently press into dough with the rolling pin to adhere.  

Working from the long end and starting from the top, gently roll dough strip into a 12-inch long log, making sure seam is at the bottom. Cut log into 1-inch pieces and place on one half of the baking sheet, evenly spacing apart. Repeat with second piece of dough to fill the first pan. Repeat with remaining pieces of dough to fill second pan. You should have approximately 24 rugelach per pan. If the dough becomes too soft to work with during the rolling or filling, place it in the fridge on a lined cookie sheet until firm enough to work with.

Bake: Eggwash the tops of the rugelach. Sprinkle coarse sugar on rugelach. Bake until rugelach is light golden brown, about 20 minutes, rotating pans from top to bottom and front to back halfway through baking. Cool for 5 minutes on pan, then transfer rugelach to wire rack to cool completely.