Wow we are already at the sixth week of the Great Canadian Baking Show! This week the theme was Holiday Baking and Rugelach was the technical bake, a crescent shaped rolled cookie that is filled with different things like chocolate and preserves such as the bakers did.
The Rugelach technical bake was won this week by James Hoyland, which I believe is his first technical bake win. On the show the bakers were given all ingredients they needed to make the Rugelach, along with a recipe that was missing some key bits of information, this week the key challenge was around time. Those of us following along were lucky to be able to use a more complete recipe (here), and learn from their experience. The bakers also had 1 hour 45 minutes to complete the bake from start to finish.
The bakers seemed to have not seen these cookies before, with probably the best comments on this coming from Linda who throws up her hands and exclaims something to the effect “I have no idea”. I have made these a few times in the past but more of a jelly roll shape, so I am familiar with the dough which is similar to pie dough and how they are made.
0 Minutes – As usual, I give the recipe a read, and assemble all my ingredients and tools. I also line a few sheet pans with parchment.
10 Minutes – So in the other room my son and wife are decorating the Christmas tree, and I got called away to assist, so I am a little behind. I put the flour, butter, salt, cream cheese and sour cream in the food processor, give it a whirl and realize that the recipe says to incorporate the cream cheese and sour cream in bowl after incorporating the butter into the flour. Oops! It all worked OK, and perhaps even easier, although it is a bit mucky.
15 Minutes – The two rounds are made and dough is in the fridge to cool.
20 Minutes – While the dough is cooling, I get the two fillings ready – chocolate and apricot jam. Ok that didn’t take too long, I have some time to kill, so I decide to make some of Terri Thompson’s Chewy Ginger Molasses Cookies too. We might as well make this more challenging!
45 Minutes – I take the two rounds out of the fridge and get them ready to roll out into 12 inch rounds.
A nice 12 inch round of Rugelach dough! Covered in chocolate!
50 Minutes – The first one is rolled out and covered in chocolate. I didn’t put all the sugar mixture that the recipe called for on, as it seemed too much. I used a pizza cutter to cut the circle into the 16 triangles, and then rolled them up and onto the baking sheet.
55 Minutes – The second one is all rolled out, and then I cover in the apricot jam, I don’t put the almonds on so my niece can have some too. They get cut and then rolled up too.
Apricot Rugelach ready to cut and shape. Chocolate Rugelach ready for oven.
1 Hour 0 Minutes – Oops I have to wait for the ginger cookies to come out of oven……
1 Hour 5 Minutes – Ginger cookies out of oven, and Rugelach in!
1 Hour 40 Minutes – I am cutting it close, the Rugelach is nice and browned, time for them to come out of the oven.
1 Hour 45 Minutes – Done!
The judges really enjoyed these, found them very tasty, particularly the chocolate. They will definitely be made again, perhaps with some different fillings, maybe some orange zest in the dough! Is there such a thing as a savoury Rugelach?
Chocolate and Apricot Rugelach
I am not really sure why this was a technical bake as some others have also observed. The recipe is fairly straight forward, the fillings are not complex and there seems to have been enough time, heck I made another batch of cookies too. Having said that doing it at home and on the show are two totally different things. I am very much looking forward to week 7 – French Patisserie!