Prune and almond rugelach
Claire Saffitz x Dessert Person · ♥ 4.8K likes · 181.7K views · 22 min video
Timestamp
Ingredients
Method
Techniques
- 10 oz pitted prunes
- 7 oz almond paste
Crumble the almond paste into the food processor in large marble sized pieces.
Pulsing almond paste into the flour
- 2 cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- ½ tsp kosher salt
Add the flour, sugar and salt and pulse until the almond paste is a coarse meal with the biggest pieces about lentil sized.
- 4 oz cream cheese
- 8 tbsp butter
Add the cubed cold cream cheese and a stick of butter and process until they are broken down to pea sized pieces.
Cutting in cream cheese and butter, then water
- 2 tbsp water
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Drizzle in two tablespoons of water and a teaspoon of vanilla and process until it comes together into a crumbly dough.
Turn out, cut in half, wrap each piece in plastic and pat flat into disks.
What cream cheese does; chilling the discs
Chill the disks in the fridge for a couple of hours at least, until the butter is cold and the dough firms up.
- 4 tbsp butter
- salt
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
Chop the prunes into a small saucepan with the four tablespoons of butter, a pinch of salt, a quarter cup of sugar and the port.
- port
- water
Add just enough water to barely come to the top of the prunes and bring up to a simmer.
Mash with a potato masher as the prunes plump and soften, until the fruit and skins break down into a coarse puree.
Keep cooking and stirring until glossy and thick: a spatula dragged through takes a couple of seconds to fill back in.
Cool the filling, stirring the pan over a bowl of ice water, or refrigerate; it should be cold when the cookies are assembled.
Cooling over an ice bath
- flour
Flour the surface and roll one chilled disk into a 12 inch round about an eighth of an inch thick, rotating often and using a bench scraper to lift it.
Rolling a tender dough into a round
Spread a scant one cup of filling across the round with an offset spatula, leaving a half inch border and keeping the layer even.
Spreading the filling
Cut the round like a pizza: in four, then eighths, then 16 wedges.
Roll each wedge up from the thick end into a crescent and rest it on its point on the sheet tray; cracking is fine.
- 1 whole egg
- demerara sugar
Repeat the rolling, filling and cutting with the second piece of dough.
Egg wash, demerara and rack position
Heat the oven to 350 with a rack in the upper third so the sugary filling does not darken the bottoms.
Brush the crescents with beaten egg in a thin layer, concentrating on the pastry rather than the exposed filling.
Sprinkle generously with demerara sugar and chill in the freezer about five to ten minutes so they hold their shape.
Bake around 25 minutes until they have good color and are not too dark on the bottom; three more minutes if pale.