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.
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.
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.
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.
I froze the two long rugelach tubes for a little bit before slicing. They sliced beautifully once chilled.
I baked the rugelach for around 15 minutes. Lo and behold, Dorie’s version came out perfectly.
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!
- 4 oz. cold cream cheese
- 1 stick of butter
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ tsp. salt
- 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
- 1 egg beaten with a tablespoon of water
- ½ cup sugar (approx.)
- Cut up the cream cheese and butter in to chunks.
- Place the flour and salt in the bowl of a food processor.
- 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.
- Transfer mixture to a floured board and form in to a ball with your hands. Separate in to two pieces.
- Shape each piece into a square and wrap in plastic wrap.
- Chill dough squares in fridge for two hours.
- 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.
- Chop up the chocolate well. Set aside in small bowl.
- 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.
- Roll out the dough to a 12 x 12 rectangle.
- Slice the rectangle in half to 12x6.
- Spread filling on rectangle, leaving one long edge without filling.
- Roll up the dough from that one edge. Roll it up jelly roll style, with seam side down.
- Repeat process with the second dough rectangle,
- Transfer both rolls to the freezer.
- Preheat the oven to 400.
- Once the oven is heated to temperature and the dough rolls are chilled thoroughly, remove the rolls from the freezer.
- Brush the top of the rolls with the egg mixture and sprinkle on some of the sugar.
- Slice each roll in to 1 inch slices
- Baked on parchment lined baking sheets for about 15 minutes
- Transfer to cooling racks
- Repeat the process with the rest of the dough.
- Enjoy!
Count the sticks of butter. You know it’s gonna be good when there is that much butter and chocolate in a recipe.
Ball of kneaded dough in a butter bowl, ready for some rising…
I normally detest any recipe that requires me to pull out the rolling pin and actually use it, but this wasn’t too bad. It was actually very easy. Probably has something to do with all that butter.
