Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Tuesdays with Dorie: Rugelach

I'm going to make this short tonight since I'm suffering from a terrible cold.
I have never even thought about making rugelach before and even looking at this recipe, it didn't seem like something I would like since I generally don't care for things with dried fruits. I decided to make the lekvar using the recipe in the book. Since the book said the prune would make 1 cup and apricot would make 3/4 cup, I made them both, and like others, ended up with WAY more than I needed. I am not familiar with lekvar but I think this stuff tastes pretty good.
I used the dried apricots and prunes from Trader Joe's

Finished apricot and prune lekvar. 
This rugelach had a lot of steps so I made the lekvar and the dough a couple days in advance. I rolled out the dough as instructed and filled it. I didn't measure the lekvar, just covered the dough. Then added the cinnamon-sugar, nuts, and chopped dried fruit. I used the remaining prunes and apricots and also the dried cherry/berry mix from Trader Joe's. I know now that I should have chopped the fruit up smaller because the filling was way too thick for me to roll up easily. I ended up with more of a filled roll than a pinwheel. I rolled     as best as I could and stuck them in the fridge.
The next evening I prepared to cut and bake my rugelach. They were messy to cut as all the filling tried to seep out. I ended up with about 50 pieces in total, baked in two batches. I had a little filling come out as they baked but not too bad, fortunately. 
After they cooled a bit I tasted them and they are yummy! I like both the apricot and the prune--I really couldn't choose one over the other. These are rich and buttery, but addictive. I put most of them in the freezer to keep us from eating so many.
Finished rugelach. Yum!