Walnuts and cinnamon-sugar wrapped in flaky pastry.
Its the Christmas Yumminess Countdown again! Take a look at my recipes from previous years!
This cookie is a great addition to your holiday cookie platter. It is a Jewish cookie and the name is Yiddish for “little twist.” There are sliced versions of this cookie, but I made the crescent shaped one. The cookie sort of reminds me of the cookie form of Baklava minus the honey syrup. While it looks like there should be a lot of steps to this cookie, it is actually quite simple. 
You’ll want to make the dough first since there is a half hour of chill time. And let me tell you, this pastry is the definition of health food… cream cheese and butter. While you are waiting for the incredibly healthy dough to chill, make the filling. The filling smells amazing… it sort of smells like those cinnamon crunch bagels from Panera’s!
Then you will roll out the dough into a circle-ish shape…mine always ends up looking like pangaea. No worries if yours turns out that way too … no one can tell once you roll the cookies up. 
You’ll slice the circle into 12 pieces of pizza and then roll up each slice, starting with the wider end.
Throw them on a pan, brush them with a little egg wash, and sprinkle them with a little granulated sugar. Then into the oven they go! Your house is going to smell amazing!
…and wham you’ve got rugelach!
- 1 cup salted butter, softened
- 8 oz cream cheese, softened
- 2 cups flour
- ½ cup brown sugar, packed
- ½ cup walnuts
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
- 1 egg, beaten
- sugar for sprinkling
- Cream the butter and cream cheese together with an electric mixer.
- Add flour and mix until consistent.
- Divide dough in two pieces, wrap in plastic wrap and flatten into discs.
- Chill dough for at least 30 minutes.
- In a food processor, process the brown sugar, walnuts, cinnamon, and vanilla until you have a grainy mixture with no large pieces of walnuts.
- Preheat oven to 350ºF and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
- Roll out one disc of dough into a circle that is about ⅛ inch thick.
- Spread half of the filling over the circle and cut into 12 equally sized wedges.
- Roll each wedge, starting with the wider side.
- Place cookies on the lined cookie sheets.
- Brush each cookie with a little egg wash and sprinkle with a little granulated sugar.
- Repeat steps 2-6 with the second disc of dough.
- Bake for 26-30 minutes.
- Let the cookies cool on the pan.
- Store in an airtight container.