Apple Butter Rugelach

Rugelach, it turns out, has numerous spellings.  Directly translated from Yiddish, it means little twists and it’s a hugely popular lil’ ditty in Israel, evolving over time from a yeast-based recipe.  

But nowadays, having jumped across the pond and into American baker hands, they’ve become a cream cheese based pastry cookie filled with concoctions of dried fruits, nuts, or chocolate, to poppy seed or cinnamon or jam or, or darn near anything.  

Cream cheese, to skip the hassle of yeast I’ve read.

Right quick I realized you for sure can put darn near anything in these cookies, the dough is merely a puffy delivery vehicle for your heart’s desire. 

And really, they’re simpler than you might suspect.

Check out the full blog post over on The Bake Dept for all the details and tips!

As you'll have two dough rounds to work with, be sure to split your filling in half ahead of time.

Slice one round into sixteen cutie evenly sized wedges with either a pizza cutter or a big ol’ knife (flouring those blades kinda helps).

Slip one of those cutie wedges out and starting at the wide end, gingerly roll ‘em up to the little pointy end.

A few more simple steps and then pop them in the oven to bake for about fifteen to twenty minutes.  Do wait for them to get puffy and golden brown; it won’t seem like they’ll go but they do so don’t necessarily follow the clock.

Looking for more tasty cookie recipes? Come check out my growing list!

Cool them on a rack, pour a nice glass of cold milk, and nom nom nom nom nom…..

Deeeeelicious.  Tender and velvety.  A nice crunch from the walnuts I didn’t chop super fine.  Spritely pops of fruity currants.  Yum.  Yesss, insert fist pump.

Happy baking!