Rugelach Cookie Recipe – Shugary Sweets

Rugelach has a rich cream cheese dough and a sweet fruity and nutty filling that gets rolled into crescent shapes and baked until flaky and delicious!

If you love cream cheese cookie doughs, our sugar cookie cut out recipe is the BEST. Holds it’s shape and tastes amazing. Or give our simple kolachky recipe a try next.

What is Rugelach

This traditional Jewish pastry combines a rich, buttery cream cheese dough with a fruit and nut filling that offers the perfect sweet contrast.

Rugelach is flaky and delicate and while it may look fancy and involved, it’s actually very simple to make!

• The homemade dough comes together easily and offers a rich base for rolling up the filling.
• These pastries feature a filling of raisins, walnuts and orange marmalade, plus sugar and cinnamon, for a sweet, fruity taste in each bite.
• The pastries are finished with a cinnamon sugar mix sprinkled on top and baked until flaky and perfect!

Ingredient Notes

• Unsalted Butter – We use unsalted butter in all of our recipes, unless noted. If you only have salted butter, omit the added kosher salt in the recipe.
• Cream Cheese – Full fat cream cheese will give you the best results for this pastry. Be sure to let it soften at room temperature for a few minutes before starting.
• Walnuts – We prefer walnuts in this recipe, but you could also substitute pecans. Toast the nuts for best flavor!
• Orange Marmalade – The citrus of the orange marmalade bars brightens up the flavor of these pastries. You could also use an apricot jam. Save some of this jam for our easy fruit salsa!

PRO TIP- We love making our own homemade vanilla extract, but if using store bought, be sure it’s pure extract, not imitation (for best flavor).

Easy Instructions

Make the dough. Combine the butter and cream cheese until pale in color. Add in sugar, salt and vanilla extract and mix until fully combined. Add the flour until just combined; don’t overmix it.

Roll dough and chill. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and roll into a ball. Cut the ball into 4 even pieces and wrap in plastic wrap then refrigerate for 1 hour.

Make the filling. Combine the brown sugar, cinnamon, raisins and walnuts in a small bowl.

Assemble the pastries. Roll each chilled portion of dough into a 7-inch circle. Spread about 2 tablespoons of orange marmalade onto each circle then sprinkle evenly with the filling mixture. Cut each circle into 12 wedges and roll each wedge up starting with the widest side and going to the point.

Brush and bake. Brush the rugelach pastries with the egg wash, sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar and bake at 350 for 15-18 minutes, until lightly golden brown.

Tips and Tricks

• Allow the butter and cream cheese to soften at room temperature before you start making the dough.
• Don’t overmix the dough! When adding the flour, incorporate it into the dough just until no white streaks remain. Don’t overmix or the dough will be tough.
• Be sure to chill the dough! This helps solidify the butter to a chilled state, which allows the pastry to be nice and flaky when baked.
• Line the cookie sheet with parchment paper. This prevents the pastries from sticking to the pan and makes clean up oh so easy!

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