Chocolate Rugelach

Chocolate Rugelach Recipe

Chocolate in a Flaky Pastry Crust

The other day, I got a "chocolate roll" from a bakery in Prague.  It was a cheap snack that did not exactly hit the spot, being a very dry, slightly-burnt miniature croissant with some chocolate in the middle.  It reminded me, however, of chocolate rugelach.  Since a New York bakery is a long way a way, I figured I would make some for myself.

This recipe uses a dough adapted from Martha Stewart.


Ingredients
For the dough:
4 oz cream cheese (in the U.S.) or 125 grams (half a package) of soft tvaroh* (in the C.R.), room temp.
1/2 cup of butter, room temp.
2 tablespoons of sugar
1 cup of flour

Filling:
1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped
1-2 tablespoons of butter, melted


*Tvaroh, which I have used before, is a soft cheese found easily in the Czech Republic.  I enjoy using it in my recipes instead of cream cheese because it is cheaper and, simply, something different.  To find something similar outside of the Czech Republic, look for quark cheese at a German specialty shop.

Make the dough:
In a large mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to cream together cheese and butter until smooth.  Add sugar and beat until incorporated.  Add flour gradually while beating on medium speed.  A crumbly dough should form.  Using lightly-floured hands, gather dough into a ball.  Flatten the ball into a disc, wrap with plastic, and refrigerate at least 2 hours.

I am terrible at rolling dough out in a circle, so I use a plate for a template.  The extra dough can be re-rolled out.

Make the cookies:
Roll out the dough on a lightly-floured surface into a circle.  (If you are like me, you cannot make a shape even remotely circular, so roll it out as circular as possible and cut the edges into a circle.  The scraps from the edge can be rolled out again to make another circle.) The dough should be a quarter of an inch thick.  In order to make thin triangles, cut the circle with a sharp knife into sixteenths.  Spread each triangle with melted butter and sprinkle with chocolate.  Roll from the wide end to the small end, as you would a croissant.  Place on a cookie sheet and refrigerate 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 F (170 C).  Remove cookies from refrigerator and bake 20-25 minutes, until golden brown.  Allow cookies to cool and store in an airtight container.

Enjoy!

-Colleen

Hamantaschen

Hamantaschen

A Treat for Purim

This post is a bit late for Purim but these cookies are worth reporting about.  The recipe comes from Smitten Kitchen and has been altered a bit to suit ingredients available in the Czech Republic in general and our pantry specifically.  

Ingredients: 

8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
6 tablespoons tvaroh*
3 tablespoons icing sugar 
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups plus 4 teaspoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Filling (I used poppy seed filling mix, though one could also use jam).  

*The recipe calls for cream cheese.  Though it is not impossible to find here, it is rather expensive and I figured I would try a more Czech alternative.  Tvaroh is similar to quark, a fresh cheese popular in Central and Eastern Europe.  It can be creamy or crumbly and is often referred to as "curd."  I chose to use a creamy, high-fat tvaroh because it is most similar to cream cheese.

Cream together butter and tvaroh until smooth.  Then add sugar and continue to mix for one minute.  Add egg, vanilla, and salt.  Mix until combined.  Gradually add flour until a smooth but slightly sticky dough comes together.  The dough has a distinct pastry feel to it--not as light as bread dough but not as heavy as cookie dough.  You may need to add up to one tablespoon of extra flour if the dough is too sticky.  

Make a disc, as you would for sugar cookies, and wrap in plastic wrap.  Refrigerate at least one hour while you prepare the fillings.

I love this poppy seed filling!   There's even a recipe on the back, just like grandma used to make.  This is a mixture of ground poppy seeds, sugar, and starch that makes it thicken up into paste when water is added. 

Poppy paste! Yeah, I bet all of you trying to make hamantashcen in America are jealous of how easily one can get poppy paste here.  And I'm jealous of how easily one can get Cheetos there.  So we're even.

After the dough has been refrigerated, roll it out on a floured surface to about a quarter of an inch thick. This is when most people use fancy circular cookie cutters.  The ring of a ball jar works just as well.  And don't lie, if you are reading this, you probably own more ball jars than cups and definitely more ball jars than circular cookie cutters.  They also come in convenient sizes.  Use a regular ring for smaller hamantaschen and a wide-mouth ring for larger, more traditional cookies.  

Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 F (170 C).

Place a small spoonful of filling in the middle of the circle.

 Pinch closed three corners to make the shape of a tri-corner hat.  This first batch, I only pinched it a little bit and avoided covering the filling.  You will see that when they came out, they had mostly unfolded themselves.  The next batch, I pinched them so hard that I almost covered the filling and they stayed pretty triangular. 

Place cookies on a parchment-lined baking sheet with a fair amount of space between them because they do rise.  

Bake for about 20 minutes, until the dough is golden brown.  

As you can see, these turned out a bit too puffy and not very triangular.  Delicious, nonetheless.  Store in an airtight container.