New York City’s Breads Bakery has become known for its flaky chocolate babka, but real fans know that baker Uri Scheft’s rugelach — those almost croissant-like, stuffed flaky cookies — are not to be missed. Out now is Scheft’s first cookbook, Breaking Breads: A New World of Israeli Baking. And here’s a sneak peek of the baker’s secret rugelach recipe, which actually uses babka dough as its base. It’s a perfect project for a chilly weekend afternoon.
Chocolate Rugelach
Makes 48 rugelach
American rugelach are made with a flaky pastry dough that usually contains cream cheese, either instead of or in addition to butter. The dough is sprinkled with chopped chocolate and nuts or raisins and cinnamon, rolled into a log, and sliced crosswise into small pieces. My rugelach are more of a pastry than a cookie. I use babka dough rolled very thin, spread the dough with Nutella and bittersweet chocolate ganache, and then shape the rugelach into mini croissants. The key to the success of the rugelach is for the dough to be rolled extra-thin, and since the dough is yeasted (remember, you’re using babka dough), it’s important to refrigerate it whenever it starts to resist your rolling pin, which I guarantee will happen. A marble surface is excellent for rolling this pastry. You can get the effect of cool marble by placing a couple of bags of ice on the counter to chill it before rolling.
Heavy cream - 140 grams (½ cup plus 1 tablespoon)
Bittersweet chocolate (at least 55% cacao) - 120 grams (4 ounces), finely chopped
Dark brown sugar - 60 grams (¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon, lightly packed)
Cocoa powder (sifted) - 30 grams (2 tablespoons)
Unsalted butter (at room temperature) - 30 grams (2 tablespoons)
Nutella - 120 grams (½ cup)
1 recipe Basic Babka Dough, recipe below, refrigerated for 24 hours
1. Bring the heavy cream to a simmer in a small saucepan. Place the chocolate and the dark brown sugar in a heat-safe bowl and pour the hot cream over it. Set aside for 5 minutes, then stir until smooth. Sift in the cocoa powder (yes, it is sifted twice), then stir in the butter until it’s completely melted. Stir in the Nutella until the mixture is smooth, and set aside until it is cooled to room temperature (this is very important).2. Set the dough on a lightly floured work surface and roll it, flouring the top as needed, into a rectangle that is about 8 by 22 inches with the short side facing you. Smear half the chocolate mixture over the bottom two-thirds of the dough. Fold the top third of the dough over the middle, then fold the bottom third of the dough over the middle (this is called a simple fold). Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for 20 minutes.
3. Lightly flour the work surface and set the dough on top with the seam of the dough facing to the right. Repeat step 2, rolling the dough out to an 8-by-22-inch rectangle and spreading the remaining chocolate mixture over the bottom two-thirds. Fold the dough again into a simple fold. Wrap the dough and refrigerate it for 30 minutes.
Note: It is very important to chill the filled dough for exactly the amount of time as directed. If the filled dough is chilled too long, when you go to roll the dough the filling will break and the rugelach will look tiger-striped.
4. Set the dough on a lightly floured work surface with the opening facing left. Lightly dust the top with flour, and roll the dough into a 15-by-28-inch rectangle with a long side facing you. When the dough resists rolling and bounces back (and it will), cover it with a kitchen towel and let it rest for 10 minutes (if resting longer than 10 minutes, place it in the refrigerator), then try again.
5. Divide the dough lengthwise into three 5-by-28-inch strips. Following the photo on page 251, make a small cut in the right edge of one of the strips of dough, about 1 inch from the bottom right corner of the strip. Then, starting at that notch, make another notch every 2½ inches. Repeat on the top left edge of the strip, making the first notch at 2½ inches and repeating in 2½-inch lengths all the way down. Place a dough cutter or a chef’s knife in the first notch at the bottom right edge and angle the knife up to the next notch on the left edge to make the first diagonal cut. Repeat in the other direction and continue, connecting the notches to create triangles.
6. Following the photo on page 251, make a small notch in the center of the wide base of each triangle. Hold a triangle in your hand and gently stretch to elongate it. Repeat with the remaining triangles, then roll the triangles up, starting at the wide base and ending at the narrow tip. Place the rugelach, with the pointy end tucked under the dough, on parchment paper–lined sheet pans. (You’ll have enough rugelach to fill 2 to 3 sheets; you may need to bake the cookies in batches if you run out of sheet pans.)
7. Cover the sheet pans with kitchen towels and set them aside in a warm, draft-free spot to proof until they jiggle when the sheet pan is tapped, about 1½ hours.
8. Preheat the oven to 325°F.
9. Make the egg wash and brush each rugelach so the top is lightly coated. Bake the rugelach until they are nicely browned and cooked through, about 15 minutes (do this in batches if necessary), rotating the pan midway through baking.
10. Meanwhile, make the simple syrup: Combine the sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer, stirring occasionally to dissolve the sugar. Turn off the heat and set aside the syrup to cool. Transfer the rugelach to a wire rack set over a sheet of parchment paper, and brush the still-warm rugelach with the simple syrup. Serve warm or at room temperature. Store the rugelach in an airtight container for up to 5 days.
Basic Babka Dough
Makes about 900 grams (2 pounds) of dough, for two 9-by-5-inch babkas
This is the simpler of the two babka doughs—this dough will yield a very rich and delicious babka. And if you want an even richer, flakier version, try out the Advanced Babka Dough on page 70, which will produce a babka that tastes closer to the one we make at Breads Bakery. Making babka takes less than an hour of actual work—the rest of the time is the proofing and the baking. You can shape the cake into a twisted loaf, or bake it in smaller pieces in a muffin tin, or even try baking it free-form. The thing about babka is that even if it isn’t perfect in your eyes, when it comes out of the oven hot and fragrant, I guarantee that your friends and family will devour it.
Vanilla extract - 1/2 teaspoon
Whole milk (at room temperature) - 120 grams (½ cup)
Fresh yeast - 20 grams (2½ tablespoons) or active dry yeast - 6 grams (2 teaspoons)
All-purpose flour (sifted, 11.7%) - 280 grams (2¼ cups), plus extra for dusting and kneading
Pastry or cake flour (sifted, 8.5 to 9%) - 220 grams (2 cups plus 2 tablespoons)
Large eggs - 2
Granulated sugar - 75 grams (1/3 cup)
Fine salt - Large pinch
Unsalted butter (at room temperature) - 80 grams (5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon)1. Make the dough: Whisk the vanilla into the milk in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. Use a fork or your fingers to lightly mix the yeast into the milk. Then, in this order, add the flours, eggs, sugar, salt, and finally the butter in small pinches.
2. Mix on the lowest speed, stopping the mixer to scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed, and to pull the dough off the hook as it accumulates there and break it apart so it mixes evenly, until the dough is well combined, about 2 minutes (it will not be smooth; see photo on page 29). If the dough is very dry, add more milk, 1 tablespoon at a time; if the dough looks wet, add more all-purpose flour, 1 table-spoon at a time, until the dough comes together. Increase the mixer speed to medium, and mix until the dough is smooth and has good elasticity, 4 minutes.
3. Stretch and fold the dough: Lightly dust your work surface with flour and turn the dough out on top; lightly dust the top of the dough and the interior of a large bowl with flour. Grab the top portion of the dough and stretch it away from you, tearing the dough. Then fold it on top of the middle of the dough. Give the dough a quarter turn and repeat the stretch, tear, and fold. Continue to do this until you can stretch a small piece of dough very thin without it tearing, about 5 minutes. Then use your hands to push and pull the dough against the work surface and in a circular motion to create a nice round of dough. Set the ball in the floured bowl, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and set it aside at room temperature for 30 minutes.
4. Chill the dough: Set the dough on a piece of plastic wrap and press it into a 1-inch-thick rectangle. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least 1 hour or up to 24 hours before proceeding with one of the recipes in this chapter.
Excerpted from Breaking Breads: A New World of Israeli Baking by Uri Scheft (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2016. Photographs by Con Poulos.
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