Tuesday, November 4, 2008

TWD: Rugelach Pinwheels



I am familiar with Rugelach. I made it last year for the holiday and I ate probably half of what I made all by my lonesome, it was that good. So when Piggy from Piggy's Cooking Journal chose Rugelach for our TWD pick this week, I was thinking...well been there done that, and man can't wait to do it again!!

I don't have a FP and I hate using my small little chop n' grind sub one for stuff like this, so I looked up the other recipe I used last year from one of my fave blogs, Smitten Kitchen, and since it said FP...and I made it last year...I figured I had used a hand mixer, so I did that for this batch as well, mixing by hand in the end so as not to overmix the dough.



Chilled it for a few hours, rolled it out between wax paper and flour, brushed on some apricot preserves, brown sugar, cinnamon, chopped pecans and rum-soaked raisins, rolled it into a long log and chilled it. I made another log with raspberry preserves I picked up in Paris, brown sugar, cinnamon, chopped walnuts and mini semi-sweet chocolate chips.



Then I cut slices off of the log, and made Rugelach Pinwheels. This is a far easier way than cutting triangles and rolling little croissants, esp when your skills at cutting croissant triangles is pretty darn crappy like mine. I do like the original rugelach method though so I might give it a try when I have more time, but today was not the day to spend an hour fixing misshapen rugelach croissants!





The pinwheels baked up beautifully, sometimes they lose their shape which I like because then you can see the lovely carmelized brown sugar, cinnamon and raisins peeking out. YUM.



Oh and the dough from the hand mixer? Beautiful...it is light and flakey, absolutely buttery perfection!!! Def doing these again for holiday..just like I did last year. Find the recipe at Piggy's site up above, and check out all the TWD fabulousness that is Rugelach over at the TWD site.

Oh and I made a random loner Rugelach croissant style, and you see how horrible I am at rolling it...yep better stick with the pinwheels. The good thing about Rugelach is that even when stuff oozes out and/or your cookies don't have much shape, they still taste really amazing!!

27 comments:

Cathy said...

Pinwheels! Just plain brilliant, I tell you! I think I'll try that next time. Your fillings look downright irresistible!

Snooky doodle said...

yummy these look great

Engineer Baker said...

Whoa, what do you think you're doing? Just sneaking in that you soaked your raisins in rum?! Brilliant! Your pinwheels look delicious.

Kimberly Johnson said...

I think I'm going to try pinwheels next time since I can't seem to roll dough out in a nice looking circle! Your rugelach looks great!

CB said...

You and your rum-soaked raisins! You are such a lush. HAHA. I bet your Parisian raspberry preserves variation was amazing! Glad you enjoyed the recipe. PS. Have you decided on your KA mixer yet?
Clara @ iheartfood4thought

Jamie said...

You pinwheels looks delicious and so do your toppings!

chocolatechic said...

I should have made pinwheels.

Yours look so wonderful.

marae said...

lol CB everything is better with rum-soaked raisins! it turns them from hard little hockey pucks into squishy rummy goodness. :D funny thing is i don't really drink at all...just in my baked goods!!

KA mixer, i udpated in the previous banana bread post!! soon soon.

lovely ladies, you really should try the pinwheels, they are much easier and very fun, i did them last year for cookie exchange!

Anne said...

I love the pinwheels! They look perfect and I love that you made it work without the FP, too. Great job!

Piggy said...

Great looking pinwheels! :-)

Thanks for baking withe me this week!

Anonymous said...

How funny! I love the little loner croissant style rugelach. Your rugelach pinwheels look delicious.

kimberly salem said...

i am totally doing pinwheels next time! :) glad the mixer worked so well for you. they look great!

Spike said...

I'm going to try pinwheels next time, I always cut them so unevenly.

Megan said...

I thought about doing the mixer as well, but since I only made half a batch, I just did it by hand. Yours came out great!

Beth said...

Yum!! I'm a fellow TWD baker, and I was thinking that it would be nice if we all could chip in and get Laurie some small token/gift for all the work she does. Would you be willing to contribute? If I can get enough people, it would only be about $1 per person. No pressure :-) Let me know! bethberg12@yahoo.com

Tammy said...

pinwheels is a great idea! i must try doing it that way!

betty geek said...

These look might tasty my love. Can you make me some this Sat.? ;)

Anonymous said...

Okay...I am ALMOST convinced that you can make rugelach in a pinwheel shape, almost....LOL. Yours look very fine. The combinations you have going are beautiful and look very tasty. Great photos!

TeaLady said...

Rugewheels. Works for me. And lots easier. It's the taste that counts. And your fillings sound tasty. Yummy!

Lisa magicsprinkles said...

We had the same experience! My crescents look like your did - "rustic" is the nice word someone used, and I wound up switching to the pinwheel method for the second part of the dough. Luckily they are sooo tasty and the evidence got eaten!

Unknown said...

Hey! Looks divine!! I missed this week and now seeing everyone's, I am starting to regret it!!

Jacque said...

Oooh, fun! I like your pinwheels, I'll bet they tasted fantastic.

Jin Hooi said...

clever you !! like the pinwheels idea, looks yummy !!

Sherry Trifle - Lovely Cats said...

Great rugelach! I think I would like to try pinwheels - they must be much easier to handle.

Marthe said...

Your pinwheel rugelach look perfect and soooo delicious!! Yum!

Linda said...

I love your pinwheels...You've inspired me to try that the next time around. Sounds like rugelach is going to be a popular holiday cookie this year!

LyB said...

These definitely taste amazing and your variation with raspberry preserves sounds incredible! :)