Festive Holiday Rugelach Recipes

Steps:

• Cut cold butter or margarine and cream cheese into bits. In food processor pulse flour, salt, butter or margarine, cream cheese and sour cream until crumbly.
• Shape crumbly mixture into four equal disks. Wrap each disk and chill 2 hours or up to 2 days.
• Combine sugar, cinnamon, chopped walnuts, and finely chopped raisins (may substitute miniature chocolate chips for raisins).
• Roll each disk into a 9 inch round keeping other disks chilled until ready to roll them. Sprinkle round with sugar/nut mixture. Press lightly into dough. With chefs knife or pizza cutter, cut each round into 12 wedges. Roll wedges from wide to narrow, you will end up with point on outside of cookie. Place on ungreased baking sheets and chill rugelach 20 minutes before baking.
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).
• After rugelach are chilled, bake them in the center rack of your oven 22 minutes until lightly golden. Cool on wire racks. Store in airtight containers...they freeze very well.
• Variations: Before putting the filling on the dough, use a pastry brush to layer apricot jam as well as brown sugar. Then add the recommended filling. You may also make a mixture of cinnamon and sugar and roll the rugelach in this prior to putting them on the cookie sheets.

Steps:

• In a large bowl of an electric mixer, beat cream cheese and butter until creamy and smooth. Add 5 cups flour and combine. Add remaining flour in small batches, stopping when dough no longer sticks to sides of bowl (not all flour may be needed). If dough remains sticky after all the flour is used, add a little extra flour.
• Remove dough from mixing bowl; divide into four equal pieces and wrap tightly in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or overnight.
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough, one piece at a time, to rectangles of 1/8-inch thickness. With a sharp paring knife, score dough into 3-inch squares.
• Fill half the pastry with prune butter and half with apricot butter: Spoon one teaspoon of filling into one corner of each square, adding 3 or 4 raisins to the prune filling. Roll up each square from corner to corner, bending it into a crescent shape. Brush with egg wash.
• Combine sugar and cinnamon, and sprinkle about a teaspoon over each crescent.
• Bake on parchment-lined baking sheets for 15 minutes, or until tops are golden brown. Cool on baking racks.

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease cookie sheets; set aside.
• In large bowl cream butter and cream cheese. Slowly work in 3 cups flour. Divide dough into 6 equal pieces and shape into squares. Lightly flour dough, wrap in waxed paper and refrigerate at least 1 hour. Combine remaining 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 cup powdered sugar.
• Remove one piece of dough at a time from refrigerator; roll out on surface dusted with flour-sugar mixture to 18x5x1/8-inch thick strip.
• Combine granulated sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle dough strip with 2 tlbs sugar/cinnamon mixture. Sprinkle about 1/4 cup M&M's on wide end of each strip. Roll dough starting at wide end to completely enclose baking bits. Cut strip into 1 1/2 inch lengths; place seam side down about 2 inches apart on prepared cookie sheets.
• Repeat with remaining ingredients. Bake 16 to 18 minutes until golden. Cool completely on wire racks. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Store in tightly covered container.
• ***Variation***.
• For crescent shapes, roll each piece of dough into 12 inch cirle. Sprinle with cinnamon/sugar mixture. Cut into 12 wedges. Place about 1/2 tsp M&M's at wide end of each wedge and roll up to enclose baking bits. Place seam side down on prepared cookie sheets and proceed as directed.