Cranberry Orange and Walnut Rugelach

5 from 2 votes

Cranberry Orange and Walnut Rugelach

A tender cream cheese rugelach dough rolled with a tart cranberry orange walnut filling and baked into golden, flaky, holiday cookies.

Prep Time30

Total Bake Time1 30

C2 40

Total Time4 40

Course: Cookies, Fall, Holiday, Nuts

Cuisine: Polish

Difficulty: Hard

Servings: cookies

Calories: 108kcal

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

13 ounces (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 and dusting
¼ cup Orange peel (optional)

Instructions

COOKIE DOUGH

Weigh or measure the flour and salt and add them to a food processor. Pulse once or twice. Cut up the butter and cream cheese and add them to the flour mixture. Pulse until it looks like small pebbles. Mix the egg yolk and vanilla with a fork before adding it to the mixture. Pulse until the dough starts to come together in a large ball.
Cut the flattened disk into quarters and mold each piece into a flat disk about five inches round and quarter inch thick. Wrap them in plastic wrap and chill for two hours or for up to three days. Keeping them round makes them easier to roll out.

FILLING

Take the wrapped disks out of the refrigerator and let them warm up. In a food processor, add the dried cranberries and walnuts and pulse 2 or 3 times until they are in small pieces. If you are adding orange peel, add it now and pulse 1 or 2 more times, then transfer the mixture to a bowl. Put the orange marmalade into a microwave safe bowl and heat it for 30 seconds, then stir until 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 mixture, I used powdered sugar instead of flour to coat my work surface for rolling out the dough. Use as much powdered sugar as needed to prevent the dough from sticking.
Roll out the cookie dough until you have a circle about 12" across, then use a pastry brush to spread a layer of orange marmalade. I leave about half an inch around the outside rim without any marmalade. Sprinkle the cranberry walnut mixture on top of the marmalade. The more you add, the harder it will be to roll the triangle shapes into crescents. I press down lightly on the cranberry mixture so it sticks to the marmalade, then sprinkle powdered sugar over the top.
Using a sharp knife or a pizza cutter (which I find easier), cut the dough like a pizza. Start at the outside edge of one of the triangles and roll toward the middle. Pick it up and place the cookie on the parchment lined cookie sheet. You can easily fit 10 on a pan. Put the whole pan into the refrigerator so the cookie dough firms up before baking for 21 to 24 minutes at 350°F (175°C or 180°C). I added parchment paper to my cooling rack so the bottoms of the cookies do not stick to the wire rack. Move them to the prepared cooling rack as soon as 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.

Nutrition