The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

ITJB FR Week 8 Rugelach pps. 216-17

gmagmabaking2's picture
gmagmabaking2

ITJB FR Week 8 Rugelach pps. 216-17

We 3 sisters baked a variety of Rugelach today. This recipe requires the dough to be made the day before the bake, so it really shortens the amount of time it takes to get to bite down on baking day! We are starting off with Barb's pictures.

  

These look tremendously good. Helen said that she thinks these cookies bring together the flavors of pie crust, churros, and sugar cookies... Barb and I both agree... 

 Barb used the sour cream dough recipe on page 212. These cookies are so tasty that you will be glad the recipe doesn't make too many.  They are addictive!!!

      Moving along to Helen's batch, Her triangles look so perfect that she decided to keep them and forgo the rolling into crescents.  

Her cookies are crusted with cinnamon and sugar and chopped walnuts, and coated with simple syrup. Helen got creative and used a sugar cookie dough as her base.

   These look crunchy and delicious.

Do I smell coffee brewing... looks like a great snack.

                                                                    

I also used the sour cream dough and my triangles leave crescent shaping a challenge, so I rolled creatively...    

They may not be perfect crescents but they are perfectly tasty treats... had to hide them from the hubby!   

So again we gathered together via cyberspace and telephone photos and texting... baked and enjoyed ourselves while learning our way through Jewish kitchen traditions, thanks to  Stan and Norm. We are getting close to finishing the book.  A few more weeks.  Meet us here next week for the Danish Coffee Ring on page 135. Using the Danish dough on page 131 and a new braiding technique on page 136... Looking forward to it already. Thank you my sisters for another great morning together.

Diane

dabrownman's picture
dabrownman

look tasty enough.  These are one of my favorite holiday cookies although I do like icing decorated large sugar cookie Santas too.   I have to admit mine roll up pretty ragged most of the time as do my croissants :-)

But, to show you the power of rugelach, 2 years ago I made a mince meat pie from scratch that actually had meat in it and no one liked it at all - once they found out it had beef shank in it .... except me of course.  So the next year I made a mince meat pie, no one would touch it,  but I also made some extra filling and put it in some rugelach.  These very same people said that those rugelach were the best ones they had ever had and they disappeared faster than the chocolate or apricot ones.   When they asked what was in it, I just said the usual raisins,  dried fruits and some nuts cooked up to a jammy consistency.  Sometimes it is best not to let out all your baking secrets  :-) 

Yes, the cookie power of rugelach is impressive.  I chalk it up to the sour cream in the dough.  I'm glad you gals made a run at them and had a good time making them.  You can put any filling in them you want to suit any pallet - if you don't tell them what's in it!

Nice baking.

jannrn's picture
jannrn

You know, I do LOVE to see what you and your sisters do each week....and admittedly, I am slow on the uptake sometimes, but did I just understand that yall are in your own homes doing this and share your pics etc with each other via web pics etc?? THAT would really be amazing!! Again, I may have totally misunderstood that part, but I do LOVE the work yall do and the pictures! I am gonna try to find a copy of that book and see how much damage I can do with my daughters for the holidays!!! 

Thank you so much for sharing it!!

Jann

gmagmabaking2's picture
gmagmabaking2

Yes, Jann, two of us live in Texas about 45 miles apart and our big sister lives in Washington state. Barbra was a tester for the book and so she has all the guru knowledge. When the book came out "the Fresh Loaf" posted a challenge to recipes from all the sections in the book to test the printed version and help find any errata that had worked its way in through the printing process. Barb invited Helen and I too bake with her this time... and gifted us our own copies of the book.  So we did two semesters of 13 bakes before the new edition with updates came out and now are baking the last 13 weeks to cover all areas of the book... Helen lives above Ft. Worth, and I live about 40 southwest of that city in Texas. Barb lives up close to the Canadian border in Eastern Washington.  So we text and chat several times a week about what is going on for the next week.  We have a schedule. And usually Monday becomes baking day... we check on each other to make sure we are all up and ready and then we bake together and text pictures back and forth during the process... at the end of the bake - all the pictures we want to include are emailed to me, along with comments that my sisters want to make and then I do the post! Join us Jann, invite your daughters... and post if you want to... it really makes for a fun baking day... and a closer feeling together. We are blessed to spend this time together each week. Thank you for checking in... I hope this starts a baking tradition with your girls.

Happy Baking, Diane

gmabaking's picture
gmabaking

You are right on about us having fun with our baking challenge. Often one of us will come across a recipe or dig out an old one and after talking about it, we decide to all bake the same thing at the same time and do the messaging and picture sending back and forth. It is interesting to see the individual touches we put on the same recipes, sometimes decided by taste preferences and sometimes by what is handy in the pantry.

We will have baked our way through this particular book in December. Since there are several bread books that we each have, I am sure more bread challenges will surface for we three baking grammas. We haven't been able to ensnare any of our children so far but that would be so much fun. I hope you and your daughters can start baking on a certain day too. Santa might bring the same book to all of you also! We all started out with the "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" book and haven't looked back since.  Diane posts the subject for next week's bake at the end of her post. We'd love to have you join us, don't see why you couldn't jump in with a different recipe for that category from another book. No one is going to be offended here.

Ps:   As a disclaimer however, I have to say I am definitely not the expert amongst us....just the eldest, --blessed by wonderful sisters!