Pair a few of these sweet Jewish scrolls with your morning coffee. 

Recipe: Ruth Pretty

Makes – 16 servings

Rugelach, a traditional Jewish pastry, is very satisfying with morning coffee. If you wish prepare ahead of time, freeze unbaked and bake from frozen so just bake as many as you need at the time.

INGREDIENTS

190g unsalted butter (diced and at room temperature)
60g (1/3 cup + 1 tbsp) icing sugar
175g cream cheese (diced and at room temperature)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
280g (2 cups) flour (sifted)
155g (1/2 cup) apricot jam (aim for a chunky version)
60g (1/2 cup) walnuts (chopped)
80g (1/2 cup) dark (70%) chocolate (tablet, chopped)
1 egg (lightly beaten)
20g (2 tbsp) sugar

METHOD

To make pastry: Place butter, icing sugar, cream cheese and vanilla extract into bowl of food processor fitted with a metal blade. Pulse just till ingredients begin to combine. Add half of the flour to ingredients in food processor bowl and pulse till just combined. Add remaining flour and pulse till pastry begins to form a ball.

Tip pastry onto a lightly floured bench and cut into 2 equal-sized pieces, roll into balls and pat pastry into disc shapes. Wrap and chill for at least 2 hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 180ºC. Lightly grease with baking spray or melted butter 1 or 2 baking trays.

Lightly flour a clean bench and roll one disc to 40 cm circle about 3mm thick. Trim around outer edge to neaten. Spread half of apricot jam over the round and sprinkle with half of walnuts and half of chocolate.

Cut round into 8 equal wedges like spokes in a wheel. Roll wedges up from the wide edge to the narrow point as you would a croissant. Place onto prepared baking tray and rest in refrigerator for 30 minutes. Repeat with second disc of pastry and remaining jam, walnuts and chocolate.

Brush each rugelach with egg and sprinkle with sugar. Place into preheated oven and bake for 15-20 minutes or till golden brown and pastry is cooked through. Serve warm, or cool and warm to serve later.