It's Good to Be a Jew

When I was growing up in Maryland, we'd frequent Jewish bakeries and pick up some Jew treats. Half-and-half cookies, chewy fresh-baked bagels, and my favorite - rugelach. (For all you goys out there, google "rugelach" - I definitely don't want the pictures below to be your first introduction to a generally tidy-looking pastry.)

In Colorado and Utah, there seems to be a lack of Jewish delis around. Who knew? We've had to resort to Costco rugelach in our desperation. (Actually, Costco does rugelach pretty damn well. And apparently the sushi restaurants in Utah buy their salmon from Costco, too. And half of my mom's wardrobe is from Costco. Cheap and chic!)

So when my mom saw the Barefoot Contessa making rugelach, she decided we could do it, too.

Look at this classy lady chopping tomatoes in a denim shirt (from Costco, probably.) How could I compete with that?

So here's the link to the recipe:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/rugelach-recipe/index.html

I found that it's easier to roll the dough if you leave a little naked circle at the center of the flattened dough. Unlike the picture below.

Aww. It's a little pizza-lach.

Of  course, we had to make Nutella rugelach. It's like Jew-squared. 

 So this is where things go a little awry. Because I am not, in fact, a classy lady chopping tomatoes in a denim shirt.

The rugelach kind of... leaked a little bit. I think I didn't wrap them tight enough, so I'm going to try that next time.

They're more like rugged-lach.

You can choose whatever fillings you want. We took out the nuts for anaphylactic reasons, and we swapped the apricot preserves for raspberry preserves for a batch. Make sure you cook them until they're pretty golden brown - my first batch was a little mushy because I was afraid of burning them. Not like I've ever burnt a baked good. Ha. 

So they turned out pretty nicely, and tasted crazy good. Perhaps as good as the deli-made ones back in Maryland! Or maybe I'm just flattering myself.