Rugelach with Mincemeat and Almond
Flaky, buttery rugelach filled with festive mincemeat and almonds. Easy cream cheese dough, golden and sweet—perfect for holiday baking.
Servings: 48 mini pastries
Equipment
- 1 large mixing bowl
- 1 Medium Mixing Bowl
- 2 Large Baking Trays
- Pallet Knife (or similar)
- cling film
- stick blender or food processor
- baking parchment or non stick liner
- Pizza wheel or Paring nnife
- Rolling Pin C
- pastry brush
Ingredients
For the Enriched Pasty
- For the Pastry
- 250 g (9oz) plain flour
- 200 g (7oz) butter diced and chilled
- 1 tablespoon caster sugar
- 200 g (7oz) full-fat cream cheese
- Icing sugar for rolling out
For the Mincemeat and Almond Filling
- 400 g (14oz) sweet mincemeat
- 1 Lemon Zest of
- 50 g (2oz) ground almonds
- ½ teaspoon mixed spice
To Finish the Rugelach
- Milk to brush
- Granulated sugar to sprinkle
Instructions
Make the pastry.
- Place 250g flour in a large mixing bowl. Add 200g chilled butter, cut into cubes and rub in until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
- Stir in 1 tablespoon sugar. Spoon in 200g of cream cheese into the bowl. Use a dinner knife to cut repeatedly through the mixture, moving the bowl around as you do so. Gradually, the cream cheese will become coated in flour and will resemble coarse breadcrumbs again.
- Next, bring the dough together with your hands and form into a ball. Divide into 3 equal sized balls and flatten each into a disc. Wrap each piece and chill for at least 30 minutes.
Make the mincemeat and almond filling
- Either use a stick blender or food processor for this stage (I used a stick blender). Blitz 400g mincemeat into a coarse paste. Add the zest of 1 lemon, 50g ground almonds and ½ teaspoon mixed spice and stir together thoroughly. Add a little more ground almonds if your mixture is still a little loose.
To complete
- Remove one of the chilled pastry discs from the fridge, place onto a clean work surface liberally dusted with icing sugar. Dust the rolling pin and the upper surface of the pastry with icing sugar. Roll the pastry out into a circle about 2mm (⅛in) thick, dusting with more icing sugar if necessary. Chill again for 10 minutes if the pastry has become very soft.
- Spread ⅓ of the filling evenly over the surace of the pastry.
- Using a pizza wheel or paring knife to slice the pastry into 16 wedges, ideally aiming for them to be approximately the same size.
- Dust the area next to the rolled pastry with more icing sugar. Take one of the wedges and lay it on the icing sugar with the pointed end furthest from you. Roll the pastry into a 'croissant' shape by starting the roll at the short straight edge nearest to you.
- Place the Rugelach on a lined baking sheet. Chill for at least 20 minutes.
- During this time, repeat with the remaining dough and filling.
- Preheat the oven to 200℃ (180℃ fan)/400°F/gas mark 6. Use a pastry brush to gently paint a little milk onto the upper surface of each rugelach and sprinkle with a little granulated sugar.
- Bake in the centre of the preheated oven for about 20 minutes until crisp and golden. You may need to rotate the tray half way through the bake. Once baked, remove from the oven and after 2 minutes carefully transfer them to a cooling rack..
- Enjoy!
Notes
Cooks Tips:
- Avoid over working the pastry when incorporating the cream cheese. The over worked pastry will be tough and not flaky once baked.
- Don't be tempted to add more flour to the dough.
- Use a food processor to make the pastry if you prefer, however, blend in short bursts taking care to avoid over working it.
- Use homemade mincemeat for the best flavour
- Bought mincemeat can be a little wetter than homemade and tends to seep out of the pastries during baking. Add some extra ground almond to stiffen slightly or if you have time, try adding the filling after slicing the pastry to ensure the filling is not too near the edges and therefore resulting in less seepage of the sweet mincemeat during the bake.
- If your kitchen is particularly warm, you may find that the pastry starts to shine and become tacky whilst you fill and roll each of the triangles. If this happens, simply scatter over some icing sugar and chill again. See the main post for more tips for working with this pastry.