We make this honey, cinnamon and walnut rugelach every year. It’s just not Christmas without these little cookies!

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One of the biggest draws of Christmas is time with family steeped in traditions. We are all creatures of habit and anticipation of something familiar is both exciting and comforting.

When Brad and I got married we moved away from both of our families and were very anxious to establish holiday traditions of our own to pass onto our children.

Special festive food is, of course, a major part of any traditions and Christmas baking became something I dove right into!

Some recipes came from Brad’s family, some from glossy foodie magazines, and the one I am sharing with you today came from a Russian cookbook that was in my family for years.

I was leafing through it one day when I stumbled on it. I marked it with a star * and jotted “Christmas” next to it. That’s how this Rugelach or Rogaliki became our family’s Christmas Tradition.

I’ve been making it ever since. For the last two decades we’ve enjoyed the taste of a cookie, that has Eastern European roots but also became popular in North America through the Jewish immigrants. It is widely known as Rugelach.

Can you hear the similarity between Rogalik to Rugelach? I was also happy to learn that “rugal” in Yiddish means “royal”. Rogalik is so lovely, it’s truly fit for the King of Kings.

Rugelach Cookie Dough

There are literally hundreds of recipes of Rugelach that are floating around the internet. The biggest difference between them and mine is that most of them use cream cheese to make the dough, which is not authentic at all.

In fact, it is rumoured to be developed by Philadelphia to help with the sale of their brand.

My recipe uses sour cream and after trying many other cream cheese based recipes, I always come back to mine. I might be partial but I believe my recipe is superior.

Recipe Tips and Notes

Preheat your oven to 350F/180C and line your baking sheets with parchment paper.

Whip your softened butter together with sour cream in a large bowl. Add flour in small portions and continue mixing. Empty the contents of the bowl on floured surface and continue kneading until you have smooth and pliable dough adding a bit more flour if sticky. Cover and let sit for 10 min.

While your dough is resting chop the walnuts finely or process them in a food processor, mix with sugar and cinnamon and set aside. Make sure your honey is spreadable, heat it if needed to achieve the right consistency.

Divide your dough into 4 parts and rolls out each individually into a circle. The dough shouldn’t be thicker than 1 cm. Brush honey on it and divide into 16 even triangles.

Now sprinkle ¼ of the nut/cinnamon mixture on your circle.

The next step is the funnest of them all. That’s where the famous rogalik takes its shape. Roll up each triangle starting from the wide end towards the centre of the circle.

Arrange the cookies on a parchment lined baking sheet, brush them with the egg wash and bake them for 25-30 minutes.

How to prevent them sticking to the pan

I strongly recommend using the parchment paper because the delicious and gooey filling will leak out a bit and turn into caramel.

If you don’t use parchment paper your rogalik will get glued to the baking sheet and will make it stressful to remove. Once baked remove them from the baking sheet to a wire rack while still warm.

These little beauties take a bit of work but I get a profound sense of satisfaction and pride then they are done and put away in lovely Christmas tins!

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This recipe for Honey, Cinnamon and Walnut Rugelach (Rogaliki) was originally published 12/2012, updated 12/2018