Cream Cheese Pastry:
- 1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1/2 pound cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
Filling:
- 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- 3 tablespoons or more unsalted butter, melted
- 1 1/4 cups walnuts, finely chopped
In a large bowl
of an electric mixture, cream the butter and cream cheese together until completely blended and smooth. Beat in the salt and on low speed gradually add the flour. While beating in the flour toward the end the dough might start to run up the beaters. If so, the last of it may be stirred in by hand.
When the dough is smooth, flour your hands lightly and place the dough on a lightly floured surface. Form the dough into a short fat roll. Cut it into 3 equal pieces. Form each piece into a round ball. Flatten them slightly and wrap each individually in plastic wrap or wax paper. Refrigerate the dough overnight.
Heat the oven to 350 degrees.
Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil or parchment paper. Stir the sugar and cinnamon together for the filling and set aside.
Place a ball of dough on a floured pastry cloth or board. With a floured rolling pin roll dough into a 12 inch circle. Don’t worry if it isn’t perfect. With a pastry brush, brush the dough with melted butter and quickly (before the cold dough hardens the butter), sprinkle with 1/3 of the cinnamon sugar mixture. Then sprinkle with 1/3 of the nuts. Gently press the nuts into the dough with the rolling pin.
With a sharp knife cut into the circle of dough into 12 pie shaped wedges. Roll up each wedge jelly roll style, rolling from the outside toward the point. Place the rolled dough, with the points down 1 inch apart on the prepared pan. Repeat with remaining dough and filling.
Bake for 30 minutes until the rugelach are golden.
Makes 36 rugelach.
Note: NaNa made some rugelach with raspberry jam. We think she used the jam instead of butter, spreading about 1 tablespoon of jam over the round of dough, then sprinkling on cinnamon-sugar and nuts, rolling it up and baking the same as the regular rugelach.