Tuesday, December 9, 2014

TWD BCM Rugelach


I've eaten a lot of rugelach in my life.  Some very good rugelach (my mother's, my great aunt's) and a lot of awful rugelach (the packaged kind they have at most synagogue kiddushes after services on Saturday mornings).  However, I  think the only other time that I've attempted to make it myself is with TWD BWJ.  Re-reading my post (my memory is not what it used to be!), I liked those rugelach, but preferred my mother's.   I have the exact same feeling about these rugelach.  They are good, but my mother's are better.  I seriously need to get her recipe.

As you can see from the photo above, my rugelach were an absolute mess.  I loved the dough (so flaky!) and love the combination of coconut and chocolate, but my rugelach didn't hold together at all.  I had a surprisingly easy time making the rolls (they were neat and surprisingly little filling spilled out), and froze them overnight, but cutting them was really hard.  Many of them broke when I tried to cut them, some more broke when I put them on the cookie sheets, and the rest seemed to break in the oven!  I think one mistake was cutting them too thin, but I don't know what else I did wrong.  I am looking forward to reading everyone else's posts, and would also appreciate any advice you all have.  I still have two rolls in the freezer, and am hoping to be able to make the next batch of cookies look good enough to serve to company.

10 comments:

  1. It looks like you may need a spoon to eat these, but I bet they are yummy. I refrigerated the dough for a few hours before rolling out. But, once I put the filling in and rolled them up I froze for less than an hour. That way they were firm without being too frozen to cut. I also made them closer to an inch thick so they held more filling.

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  2. I had a few that did the same thing. I put mine in the freezer and followed the directions to a T but used a bread knife to cut them in a sawing motion and it worked well.

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  3. The dough is wonderfully flaky, isn't it. The dough is brittle when frozen solid so I would defrost those rolls in the refrigerator before slicing. And slicing them into 1" pieces helps to keep the filling in and prevents them from falling over during baking.

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  4. I've found that few things beat your mom's or grandmother's recipes. I made two batches and found that if they are frozen solid they need some time to warm up. I also think using room temp egg wash helped out. Slicing them thicker was also much easier but I may have preferred the bite size pieces.

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  5. It seems that many bakers had trouble with this recipe. I used the traditional technique that Dorie did in Baking From My Home to Yours. I skipped the freezer altogether. Mom's recipes are always the best.

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  6. Mine were a complete mess but delicious all the same. I think 1/2" was too narrow to hold up on the cookie sheet, mine fell over immediately. Also,
    next time I will not freeze them, perhaps just chill in the refrigerator.

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  7. Yours look a lot like mine! I think I didn't roll out my dough as thinly as some, and also didn't pulse the filling. But they were tasty -- and I bet yours were too!

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  8. I skipped the freezer step and cut them straight out of the fridge. Maybe let them thaw in the fridge and cut them after they have thawed (but are still cold). I wish I had cut mine a little fatter too - I think a half inch was too thin.
    The dough was nice and flaky on these - more like a laminated dough

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  9. A couple of mine opened when I baked them, but still tasted yummy. you might try making your filling chopped fine. I froze mine too! If you find your mother's recipe. Please share!

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  10. I also cut mine too thin... they looked like little pinwheels. I did take the filling ingredients for a spin in the food processor, which helped with the rolling.

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