Three of a kind

Some weeks my Tuesdays with Dorie baking goes better than others.  And sometimes the blog writing is easier than others...  This week's Rugelach recipe was chosen by Grace of Piggy's Cooking Journal.  I've seen recipes for Rugelach a number of times, but I've never actually made them.  I had time last week, so I made the recipe early for once.  I had mixed success with it.  I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so part of me really, really wanted to make these again.  The rest of me was just too tired.  

A large part of my problems this week stemmed from not reading the recipe closely enough.  As a result, I put too much salt in the dough.  It wasn't horrible, but it was definitely a little too salty, especially since the dough doesn't have any sugar in it.  I decided before I started that I wasn't going to use all of Dorie's filling ingredients in each cookie.  For one thing, my kiddos wouldn't eat them.  So I decided to divide the dough into three portions and put different fillings in each.  I went with raspberry fruit butter for one, mini chocolate chips for another, and a mix of brown sugar, cinnamon and pecans in the third.  I topped them all with some turbinado sugar.

The crescent shape may be traditional, but it looked like it could get pretty messy.  And I was looking at another rugelach recipe over at Fine Cooking, which gave me the idea to just roll the dough jellyroll-style and cut it like cinnamon rolls.  =)  That went fine, but then I didn't pay attention and didn't realize I was supposed to chill the filled dough before baking.  I think that's why I had some problems with the cookies shrinking (think pie crust that isn't chilled enough before baking).  

The verdict?  Not bad, but I know I can do better.  My favorite was definitely the pecan filling.  Brianna's was the chocolate chip.  No surprise there.  The raspberry filling was good, but not sweet enough with the dough.  Ooh, now that I think about it, I should have tried the raspberry and chocolate together!  Next time...  I don't know how traditional it is, but next time I'll also add a bit of sugar to the pastry dough.  And not be in such a big hurry to get the cookies into the oven.  =)  

This recipe lends itself to lots of variation, so be sure to head over to check out the TWD blogroll to see what everyone else has come up with.  And you can find the recipe over at Grace's blog.