Raspberry Walnut Rugelach
These Raspberry Walnut Rugelach are crispy, buttery, flaky, and lightly sweetened. Cream cheese really makes this dough unique and memorable.
Ingredients
- 8 oz cream cheese, softened
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
- 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1 cup finely chopped walnuts, or nut of your choice
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 1 cup raspberry jam, or jam of your choice
Instructions
Make the dough
- In the bowl of a stand mixer or using a hand held mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter until well blended together.
- Add in 1/2 of the flour and mix until incorporated, then add in the remaining flour and mix until fully incorporated. Scraping down the sides as needed. The dough will be soft and sticky, but don't add any additional flour.
- Divide the dough into 4 pieces (I just like to roughly divide it in the dough with a rubber spatula) and place each piece of dough onto a piece of plastic wrap. Fold over half of the plastic wrap and press down into a 1-inch thick circle. Then wrap up with the remaining plastic wrap.
- Continue until you have all of the dough wrapped. Place in the fridge to chill overnight.
Making the rugelach
- Preheat the oven to 325°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- In a small bowl, mix the sugar and cinnamon together.
- Lightly coat your dough circle with flour and on a lightly floured surface (I like to use parchment paper), roll out one disk of dough to a 11-inch circle. Use more flour as necessary as you don't want the dough to stick to your surface.
- Spread 1/4 cup of raspberry jam over the surface of the dough and sprinkle on about 1 tablespoon of the cinnamon sugar mixture. Sprinkle on 1/4 cup of the chopped walnuts.
- Using a sharp knife or pizza cutter, cut each circle into 16 wedges. Roll up each wedge starting from the outer edge in towards the middle.
- Once rolled, place on the prepared sheet pan with the point side down. Continue rolling the remaining rugelach until you have enough to fill your pan. Once the pan is filled, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar over the rolled rugelach. (I like to keep extra cinnamon sugar in an empty spice jar with a shaker top)
- Bake for 20-25 minutes or until lightly golden brown. Rotate the tray 1/2 through baking. Transfer to a wire cooling rack once they come out of the oven to cool completely.
Notes
- I've used both regular cream cheese and light cream cheese for the dough, I've never noticed a difference so you can use what you prefer.
- My favorite combination for these have always been raspberry jam and walnuts, however you can customize this to whatever jam and nut combination you like.
- You can freeze the dough for up to 3 month or freeze any extra baked cookies.
- These cookies are not overly sweet, but that depends on how sweet your jam is. If you want your cookies a little sweeter, you can increase the cinnamon sugar in the filling to 1/2 cup.
Recipe adapted from Kraft