Homemade Rugelech

The next Baking with Julia recipe is for rugelech. The cookies are perfect for the Jewish holidays, well all aside from Passover. During Rosh Hashanah I bet they'd be great filled with apple butter too. Making the levkar may seem like a hassle, but it is super easy and well worth it, but if you do not feel like making the levkar any kind of fruit butter or jam will suffice. Making your own is a pain in the ass, but well worth it. In our house it will be what we make for the Jewish holidays, or to add some confusion, I may bake them for my annual Holiday Christmas Cookie Swap, so I can "school" all my goyim friends. Rugelech somehow reminds me of home. We never made it, but in Long Island, NY there is rugelech in most bagel stores and Jewish delis.

The rugelech take several stages to make over a three day time span, but doing it this way made it much less overwelming. In fact, they are cooking right now and the end product smells amazing. The dough is a lightly beaten, barely stuck together mash of cream cheese and butter, left in the fridge over night. Meanwhile, apricot and prune levkar is made. Levkar is a Hungarian fruit butter made from either dried apricots or prunes, sugar and some kind of nut. The levkar was super easy to make, all it took was some dried fruits simmered and thrown in to the food processor. The cool part of making the levkar is the left overs. I chose to make both apricot and prune levkar to have two different tastes. Dorie says it is good smeared on bread. The gals usually do not like jellies or jams, but I am going to try it out on them for a snack.

The rugelech had a lot of steps. After letting the dough rest in the fridge and making the levkar I was able to actually make the rolls. Rugelech is made like a jelly roll. First cinnamon, sugar, chopped nuts, dried fruit and the levkar are layered onto the dough. The girls had so much fun adding the layers to the dough and pressing all the yummy ingredients in, though I must say the counter and floor where quite messy when we were done. The cookies are rolled up lengthwise, kinda like a burrito, taking care to make sure you add pieces of the filling in as you go. Then you put the roll in the fridge for a night. The next day before going in the oven they are dipped in a nutty cinnamon sugar mixture. When the cookies bake they smell incredible (did I mention that???). The house smelled like the best cinnamon sugar candle mixed with baking pastry or bread...but better because it was the real thing!

On a side note, currently my face is a blotchy, red mess from eating these delicious cookies, but even so, I cannot stop eating them. Through this baking experience I am realizing that sugar really does not agree with me, no matter how much I want it to. I am wondering if I can make some of the recipes with coconut sugar? Or I need to just eat a little bit of whatever it is that I make, then bake some kind of concoction with coconut sugar or agave nectar to ween myself onto something sweet, but a hell of a lot better for me. The plan with the rugelech was to eat a few of the cookies, then stop, but they are addictive. The mixture of the light cream cheese dough with the not so sweet jammy levkar filling and crunchy, carmelized cinnamon sugar crust just keeps begging to be eaten again and again.

Chocolate Truffle Tartlets

This weekend I made the chocolate truffle tartlet from Baking with Julia Child by Dorie Greenspan. The first part of the recipe was making the chocolate pie crust. Pie crusts and I have a mixed relationship. I am constantly trying to "get it right", but have not figured out how...until now. I only had frozen butter, which was a good thing because it was really, really cold and cold butter is key to making a great pie crust. Initially I tried to make the crust in the food processor, but it was not jiving (the butter was actually too cold!), so I used my hands. I think using my hands helps, so I can FEEL the texture. Pie crust flour mixture should be really crumbly, the crumb the size of peas. I rolled it up, but it in the fridge over night to let the flavors meld and hoped for the best.



I get kinda nervous when I have to roll dough out for crust. I bought some tartlet pans for the occasion and a dough scraper at Amazing Cake Supplies, an everything you need for baking supply store in Bellaire, Houston area. I was not sure how 6 tartlet pans were going to make it to the oven in tact--1 tart or pie is usually hard enough to keep in one piece, at least from a dough rolling perspective...until now. The dough scraper and cold dough are the keys to a good pie crust. I must tell my mom this. She asked me the last time we were talking "dough" how not to make the dough stick to the surface when rolling it out and the answer is a dough scraper. When rolling out the dough use the scraper to get underneath the mixture that way the crust does not stick and get stuck. I was able to use the scraper to push the crust up, getting perfect tartlets crusts---just make sure you flour the surface now and then and if the dough starts to stick, just put it the fridge to get cold again if need be.

This recipe also made me realize I need a kitchen scale. I had to chop up amaretti cookie snaps, milk chocolate and white chocolate for the recipe. Since I did not have a scale I guesstimated 2 oz of each chocolate, and I wonder if I used too much. Either way, this tartlet is cool looking. I whipped up egg yolk until frothy and thick and folded it in with bittersweet chocolate for the filling, then mixed in my chocolates and cookies. The coolest part of this super chocolate tart is that the bits of chocolate do not melt, so when you cut a piece there are little flecks of milk and white chocolate throughout the tart adding texture. The amaretti cookies are also cool. Some of the cookies melted into the tart, but I added some hunks, so it gives some pieces a crunchy almond flavor-yum.



The tart reminds me of an ewy-gooey brownie when it is at room temperature. It requires vanilla ice-cream and a nice glass of milk (or almond or coconut milk if you prefer!). I personally found the tart a bit too rich (if that is possible) at room temperature. When the tart is cold from being in the fridge is when its truffley nature comes about. I like the tartlet better cold. When it is cold it tastes like a pie encrusted truffle...yum.


So...there is a bit of bittersweet irony in this love of mine of sweets and baking. Sugar and gluten both kinda sorta make me itch, no joke. Sugar also gives me a sexy looking red spot on the tip of my nose...it kinda sucks. I take salt baths to alleviate the itchiness. When I bake with sugar I know the red spot soon follows. I have to taste what I make right? The thing is though, I really enjoy baking and the fruits of its labor. My husband thinks I am wacky or perhaps a masochist but it hurts so good...

Next month I am making rugelech,which I am super-excited about. In the meanwhile I am going to lay off the sugar and gluten. Perhaps I will make myself some homemade gluten free bread and muffins, drink me some smoothies, and take a few baths.

PS: This afternoon I made veganish almost gluten free banana muffins (I added grain sweetened chocolate chips...I figure grain is better than sugar and this girl needs some kinda chocolate fix when she is sugar detox mode...). Instead of butter I use coconut oil and there are no eggs. Still yum just in a healthy way!