Meshuggah About Rugelach

My friend with the ailing relative has informed me that they no longer follow the restricted diet I've been experimenting with on their behalf. The illness has reached the point where the patient might as well be allowed to enjoy whatever food his heart desires in the time he has left.

And so, it was with a mixture of sadness and glee that I turned my attention to decadent sweets.

A recipe for Chocolate Prune Rugelach caught my roving eye. It was in the Holiday 2007 issue of the LCBO's Food & Drink magazine -- a FREE (gasp!) publication that I think is on par with the more glamorous Food & Wine.

This "cookie" is chef Anna Olson's delectable creation. Olson -- for those of you who haven't been initiated -- is the Martha Stewart-esque doyenne of sweet confections. She is probably best known among Canadians as the host of "Sugar" on the Food Network.

The rugelach is a traditional Jewish pastry whose name you might have trouble recalling, but you've probably eaten one before. Doing some Googling, I've found that "rugelach" means "creeping vine" or "little twists" in Yiddish or Hebrew. It's a rolled up pastry with sweet filling that looks somewhat like a Danish except the rugelach has no yeast in its dough. A lot of Jewish American recipes rely on cream cheese instead to give the dough its soft, dense texture, and that seems to have become the de facto standard.

I've never made cookie dough like this, which was remarkably idiot-proof, both in the mixing and in the baking. So often the amateur baker learns too late that he's over-kneaded the dough (making it too tough), or she has rolled it out too thick (preventing the insides from baking), or he has over-baked it (tastes like charcoal). The resulting cookie dough was both flaky and yet moist.

The addictiveness of this cookie has all to do with the filling: chocolate chips, prunes (!), some sugar and cinnamon, all processed together to a chunky paste. For people who think "old people food" when they hear "prunes", it will come as a revelation that chocolate pairs decadently well with prunes. When they bake together in the cookie, the result is a smooth, chewy, chocolatey filling.

The recipe yielded a monstrously huge batch, so I gave a bunch to my friend and brought the rest to work. They were met with positive reactions and people coming back for seconds, even thirds.

I'd love to find other ways to use cream cheese dough and other variations on the chocolate/prune paste idea. Cream cheese pastry balls with red bean filling? Chocolate prune apple tarts? Stay tuned.