Friday, May 09th 2008

Rugelach

1/2 lb (2 sticks) butter
1/2 lb cream cheese
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups sifted all purpose flour

In a large bowl of an electric mixer, 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 by hand. When the dough is smooth, flour your hands lightly and with your hands, form it into a short, fat roll. Cut the roll into 3 equal pieces. Form each piece into a round ball, flatten slightly, and wrap each individually in plastic wrap or wax paper. Refrigerate the balls of dough overnight.

When you are ready to bake, prepare the following filling and then adjust two racks to divide the oven into thirds. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cut aluminum foil to fit cookie sheets.

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Filling

1/2 cup plus 2 tbl sugar
3 tsp cinnamon
3 tbl butter, melted
3/4 cup currants
5 oz (1 1/4 cups) walnuts, finely chopped

Stir the sugar and cinnamon together and set aside. Do not mix the remaining ingredients.

Place one ball of dough on a floured pastry cloth. With a floured rolling pin pound the dough firmly to soften it slightly. On the floured cloth, with the floured rolling pin, roll out the dough, turning it over occasionally into a 12" circle; don't worry about slightly uneven edges.

With a pastry brush, brush the dough with 1 tbl melted butter and quickly before the cold dough hardens the butter, sprinkle with 1/3 of the sugar/ cinnamon mixture. Then sprinkle with 1/3 of the currants and 1/3 the nuts. With the rolling pin, roll over the filling to press it slightly into the dough.

With a long, sharp knife, cut into 12 pie-shaped wedges. Roll each wedge jelly roll fashion, rolling from the outside toward the point. Then place each little roll, with the point down, 1" apart on the cut aluminum foil.

Repeat with remaining dough and filling. Since some of the filling will fall out while you are rolling up the horns, after preparing each third of dough, it will be necessary to clean up the pastry cloth; either shake it out or scrape with a dough scraper or wide metal spatula and then reflour it.

Glaze

1 egg yolk
1 tsp water

In a small cup, with a fork, stir the yolk and water just to mix.
With a pastry brush, brush the glaze over the tops of the horns. Slide a cookie sheet until each piece of foil.

Bake two sheets at a time for about 30 minutes, until the horns are golden brown. Reverse the sheets top to bottom and front to back once during baking to insure even browning. If you bake one sheet at a time, use the higher rack.

With a wide metal spatula, immediately transfer the horns to racks to cool.