Cranberry Orange and Walnut Rugelach

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5 from 2 votes

Cranberry Orange and Walnut Rugelach

Rugleach are such a beautiful cookie. They take some extra work but are WELL worth it.

Prep Time30

Total Bake Time46

2 20

Total Time3 36

Course: Cookies, Fall, Holiday, Nuts

Cuisine: American

Difficulty: Hard

Servings: cookies

Calories: 208kcal

Ingredients

COOKIE DOUGH

2 cups (250 g) All-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon (0.25 teaspoon) Kosher Salt
1 cup (227 g) Butter unsalted cold
8 ounces (226.8 g) Cream Cheese cold
1 (1) Egg yolk
1 teaspoon (1 teaspoon) Vanilla Extract

FILLING

1 jar (1 jar) Orange marmalade
2 cups (242.42 g) Dried cranberries
½ cup (58.5 g) Chopped walnuts
1 cup (120 g) Powdered sugar for sprinkling

Instructions

COOKIE DOUGH

Weigh or measure the flour, salt and add to a food processor. Pulse 1 or 2 times. Next, cut up the butter and cream cheese and add to the flour. Pulse till it looks like small little balls. Take the egg yolk and the vanilla and mix it with a fork before adding it to the flour, butter, cream cheese mixture. Pulse till it looks like large balls starting to come together. Dump onto a pastry mat or just a clean counter and mold it to a flattened rectangle shape.
Cut the flatten ball into four parts. I find it easier to mold the quarters into a disk shape after I flatten it to about a 1" thick and wrap it with plastic wrap. You want them to be as round as you can make it, so it is easier to roll out. The disks need to refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to 3 days. I put 2 in the refrigerator, and I froze the other two disk to make later. The frozen cookie dough disks will last for three months, but I will be using mine sooner than that.

FILLING

Take the two cookie dough disks (or four if you are doing them all) out of the refrigerator and let them warm up. In a food processor, add the dried cranberries and walnuts and pulse till they are small pieces and transfer to a bowl. Take the jar of orange marmalade and put it into a bowl and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir it around till it is smooth. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C or 180°C) while you finish making the cookies. Since I did not add sugar to the cranberry mix, I used powdered sugar instead of flour to coat my working station for rolling out the dough. You can use as much powdered sugar as needed to prevent the dough from sticking.
Roll out the cookie dough till you have a circle about 12" across and taking a pastry brush, spread a layer of orange marmalade. I leave about half an inch of the outside rim without the marmalade. Sprinkle the cranberry walnut mixture on top of the marmalade. The more you add, the harder it will be to roll the triangle shape into a crescent. I also press down lightly on the cranberry mixture, so it sticks to the marmalade. I then sprinkle powdered sugar on the cranberry mixture. Using a sharp knife or pizza cutter (which I find more manageable), cut it up like a pizza. Start at the outside edge of one of the triangles and roll towards the middle. Pick it up and put the cookie on the parchment-lined cookie sheet. You can easily get 12 on a pan. Put the whole pan into the refrigerator so the cookie dough firms up then—Bake for 20-25 minutes at 350°F (175°C or 180°C). My cookies for in about 23 minutes. Move to a cooling rack after you pull the pan from the oven.

Notes

The cookie dough is enough for 4 circles of dough. The filling will fill 2 of cookie dough. I usually freeze 2 of the wrapped cookie dough to make later with another filling.

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