TWD: Baking with Julia -- Rugelach

This week in Baking with Julia we made rugelach, those rich pastry bundles encasing a gooey fruit filling. What makes rugelach so special is the richness of the dough, usually made with cream cheese and copious amounts of butter. The dough is extremely moist and tender, almost flaky like a pie dough.

The filling I used for my rugelach was the prune recipe in the book. I'm not a huge prune fan, but I do like prune fillings in pastries. In addition to the prune spread, I added sliced almonds and dried cranberries to the filling. Plus a sprinkle of cinnamon-sugar.

I cut my rugelach into longer pieces than was probably necessary, but surprisingly they held up well in the oven and didn't topple. The recipe calls for coating each piece of dough in a cinnamon-sugar-nut mixture, but I just sprinkled some cinnamon sugar on top. It's not as pretty a presentation, but a little bit neater to eat.

So how did the rugelach taste? Fabulous! The pastry was tender and delicious and I loved the prune filling--it wasn't overly sweet and sticky.

It is easy to make this recipe vegan just by using vegan cream cheese and margarine (I can find both at my local grocery stores). I left off the egg wash and my rugelach still browned nicely.

Please visit our hosts this week, Margaret of The Urban Hiker and Jessica of My Baking Heart.