twd: rugelach

 well, it's another twd/baking with julia tuesday.  this week, it's rugelach and the festivities are hosted by margaret of the urban hiker and jessica of my baking heart and by visiting their sites, you should find the recipe but i strongly suggest you buy a copy of the book instead.  i knew that this would be an easy recipe to work with-i've made rugelach by the thousands over the years.  the only thing i wasn't sure about-the lekvar filling.  when i couldn't find it in the store, i should have made my own but ran short of time and had to substitute jam.  to anyone contemplating that idea-think twice!  jam melts and runs all over the tray leaving your rugelach to simmer in a puddle of liquid fruit.  this is especially true if you use the amount called for in the recipe-so heed the warning, if you use jam, cut back on the amount, cut way back!

 this is where the work was-gathering the ingredients and preparing them for filling the rolls of dough.  i used walnuts, figs and cherries.

 the dough was so easy to work with.  i may have an advantage with that since this is the sort of stuff i do for a living and must roll large pieces of dough out by hand regularly.

 red plum jam and apricot-all fruit jam, my suggestion-make the lekvar if you can't find it in the store!

 topped with sugar and nuts

 here come the dried figs

 all rolled up-almost like they were folded in half; they were so fat and hard to roll nicely

 when cutting slices, i always mark the dough with a ruler and a knife first to make it easier and more consistent in size

 i had a lot of that sugar mix left over and i am sure it will end up in a coffee cake.

 out of the oven, you can see the puddle of jam and melted sugar in the middle

 so, i took the left over dough and made a round patty with it.  i rolled it out into a large circle and cut it into 12 wedges.

 brushed with a little melted butter, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, walnuts and figs

 rolled into crescents

now, that's what i'm talkin about!!!

many thanks to margaret and jessica.  and to all of you, bake it and send me a photo, i will post it here.  bake on my friends, bake on...