Raspberry & Chocolate Cream Cheese Rugelach + Baking Chez Moi Review

rugelach-main

Dorie Greenspan is a baking god in my book. I look up to her. So when I was recently approached to adapt Dorie’s rugelach recipe with some fresh Driscoll raspberries, I got super excited. I jumped at the opportunity to check out her latest cookbook, Baking Chez Moi: Recipes From My Paris Home To Your Home Anywhere.

baking chez moi

And then it hit me. They wanted me to make rugelach. I’ve made rugelach once before, but only once. Rugelach meant that I would have to take out my rolling pin. You know how much I despise rolling out dough. But I’m doing it for Dorie. Because she’s a great teacher.

So I got to work. I read and reread the cookbook and studied the rugelach recipe. Her dough recipe is so simple and comes together fast. I mixed up the flour, butter, cream cheese and salt in my food processor. It took just a couple of minutes.

mixing-dough

I formed the mixture in to two squares, wrapped them up in plastic wrap and then chilled for a couple hours. While the dough chilled, I made the filling. I knew that I needed to fill the rugelach with some form of raspberry and chocolate, but it needed to be different than the last time I made rugelach. I decided to make my filling using cream cheese, sugar, the fresh raspberries and some 72% dark chocolate. I’m so glad I went in that direction.

raspberries

Next, I reviewed her rolling technique over and over. To be honest, at first I doubted her method. With the first batch of the cookies, I stuck to the pie slicing method that I’d used in the past. Of course it didn’t turn out the way I wanted to. I relented and tried Dorie’s method of rolling rugelach. She recommends rolling the dough into a rectangle and slicing in half and on each half, filling and then rolling the long way.

rolled-out-dough

I froze the two long rugelach tubes for a little bit before slicing. They sliced beautifully once chilled.

unbaked

 

I baked the rugelach for around 15 minutes. Lo and behold, Dorie’s version came out perfectly.

cooling

And that raspberry and chocolate and cream cheese filling? Amazing and rich. The perfect dessert. It meshes so well with the flaky and buttery dough. I am definitely making these rugelach again soon. I’m sure I will mix up the filling ingredients over and over again, but for now, this works for me.

Thanks to the publishers, I have a copy of Dorie Greenspan’s cookbook available to give away. Please enter below!



 

Raspberry & Chocolate Cream Cheese Rugelach + Baking Chez Moi Review
 
Author:
Ingredients
Dough:
  • 4 oz. cold cream cheese
  • 1 stick of butter
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • ¼ tsp. salt
Filling:
  • 4 oz. room temperature cream cheese
  • 1 heaping cup fresh Driscoll's raspberries (around 6 oz.)
  • ⅓ cup sugar
  • 5 oz. chopped 70% or greater dark chocolate
For Top of Dough Rolls:
  • 1 egg beaten with a tablespoon of water
  • ½ cup sugar (approx.)
Instructions
  1. Cut up the cream cheese and butter in to chunks.
  2. Place the flour and salt in the bowl of a food processor.
  3. Add the butter and cream cheese to the food processor and pulse several times until it becomes crumbly. Don't let it come in to a ball on its' own.
  4. Transfer mixture to a floured board and form in to a ball with your hands. Separate in to two pieces.
  5. Shape each piece into a square and wrap in plastic wrap.
  6. Chill dough squares in fridge for two hours.
  7. For the filling, place the cream cheese, berries and sugar in the food processor and pulse until combined. You don't want the raspberries completely pureed - you want some pieces. Set mixture aside.
  8. Chop up the chocolate well. Set aside in small bowl.
  9. Take one square of dough out of the fridge. Move to a floured surface and dust the top of the dough and your rolling pin with flour.
  10. Roll out the dough to a 12 x 12 rectangle.
  11. Slice the rectangle in half to 12x6.
  12. Spread filling on rectangle, leaving one long edge without filling.
  13. Roll up the dough from that one edge. Roll it up jelly roll style, with seam side down.
  14. Repeat process with the second dough rectangle,
  15. Transfer both rolls to the freezer.
  16. Preheat the oven to 400.
  17. Once the oven is heated to temperature and the dough rolls are chilled thoroughly, remove the rolls from the freezer.
  18. Brush the top of the rolls with the egg mixture and sprinkle on some of the sugar.
  19. Slice each roll in to 1 inch slices
  20. Baked on parchment lined baking sheets for about 15 minutes
  21. Transfer to cooling racks
  22. Repeat the process with the rest of the dough.
  23. Enjoy!

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Rugelach-Vertical

Chocolate Raspberry Rugelach

I own a rolling pin, but never use it. It’s not that I am afraid of it, I just don’t really like using recipes that seem to have way too many process transitions. I use my rolling pin maybe twice a year. As you have seen by my carrot muffins, I am in some sort of wierd baking mood. I decided to get all brave and try to make some rugelach. I don’t like most bakery pastry, and I wanted to see if I could “have it my way.”

I used Ina Garten’s recipe for the rugelach dough and then came up with my own filling. The rugelach came out super tasty and they were suprisingly easy to make. My fear of baking is slowly fading.

Is rugel the singular of rugelach? I’ll go with it…

Chocolate Raspberry Rugelach (Dairy)
Dough Recipe – from The Barefoot Contessa by Ina Garten

8 ounces of cream cheese at room temperature
2 sticks of butter – softened
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
1 egg mixed beaten, mixed with 1 tsp of milk for brushing later on
2 tbsp sugar and one tsp. cinnamon, mixed for dusting
In your mixer, using the paddle attachment, mix up the cream cheese and the butter until well mixed.

Add the sugar, salt, and vanilla. Continue to mix on low speed. Slowly add the flour with the mixer running. Do not over mix the dough. The dough will be sticky.

Turn the dough out on to a well floured board and roll it into a ball. Cut the ball into quarters. Wrap each quarter in plastic wrap and chill in the refridgerator for at least an or…or you could freeze the dough for future use. The dough works best the colder it is.

While the dough is chilling, get your filling ready.

My chocolate/raspberry filling ingredients are as follows:

1 cup of walnut pieces
3/4 cup of chocolate chips – semisweet
1/4 cup of light brown sugar
Raspberry Jam – I used seedless
In a food processor, chop the walnuts and chocolate until ground well. Mix in the brown sugar.

I love my mini cuisinart. It’s petite,adorable, and cute. It was sitting lost and lonely in a cabinet behind my giant cuisinart. It should have a permanent place on my counter, but I dislike the clutter.

Once the dough is chilled, we are ready to roll up some rugelach.

On a well floured board, roll each ball into a circle, around 9 inches. Spread a very light layer of jam on to the dough circle. Do not add too much jam, as there will be too much oozing when baking. Sprinkle the nut/choc filling onto the jam. Cut the dough circle into wedges, around 12-16 equal wedges. I find it cuts best with a pizza slicer.


Starting with the wide edge, roll up each wedge. Put the rolled up rugelach on to a baking sheet lined with parchement paper or a silpat.
Chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350.

Remove the dough from the fridge. Brush each rugel with the egg wash. Dust with the cinnamon/sugar mixture.

Bake for 15-20 minutes until lightly browned. Cool on a wire rack.

Be thankful that I am not including any nutritional information on this one.

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