Rugelach are pastry-like cookies, rolled and filled with chocolate or fruit jam and sprinkled with sugar and/or cinnamon. They’re buttery and flaky, almost like tiny croissants. My main weakness has always been chocolate rugelach, but that was before I created this Raspberry Rugelach Recipe. Move over chocolate, fruit’s going to be the big winner today!
What are Rugelach?
What’s in this Raspberry Rugelach Recipe
- all-purpose flour
- unsalted butter
- cream cheese
- raspberry preserves
- granulated sugar
- brown sugar
- vanilla extract
If you prefer a different filling flavor, perhaps another fruit jam, Nutella or chocolate, just swap it in for the raspberry preserves.
How to make Raspberry Rugelach
You’re going to love how easy it is to make the dough for these cookies. One bowl is all you’ll need! Just beat the butter, cream cheese and sugars until they’re fluffy. Then beat in the vanilla and flour. Chill the dough for at least an hour, but you can definitely keep the dough in the fridge for up to several days.
Use lots of flour on your work surface and your rolling pin. The cream cheese in the dough for these Raspberry Rugelach can get sticky. Roll the dough into a rectangle and smear a line of jam or preserves down the middle. Roll it from long end to long end, like a jelly roll. Then cut it into little pieces and bake.
It’s a really fun activity to do with kids!
Enough to Share
For more cookie recipes, try these:
For more Jewish holiday recipes, try these:
- Easy Kugel Recipe with Cottage Cheese & Cherries
- Mom’s Best Homemade Jewish Apple Cake
- Cherry Hamantashen
Best Raspberry Rugelach Recipe (Classic Jewish Cookies)
Ingredients
- 2 sticks unsalted butter room temperature
- 8 oz. cream cheese room temperature
- 2 Tbsp. sugar
- 2 cups flour
- 1 egg
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 2 Tbsp. brown sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
- 3/4 cup raspberry preserves
- turbinado sugar for sprinkling
Instructions
- In a stand mixer, cream together the butter, cream cheese, sugars and salt. Mix in the vanilla, then the flour. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill 1 hour.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. On a floured surface, roll dough into 6 strips that measure 12"x 4". Divide jam evenly between the strips and spread it in a line down the center of the dough strip.
- Roll from the long end into a log. Cut into 1" pieces. Place cookies onto a parchment-lined baking sheet.
- Beat the egg with 1 Tbsp. of water in a small bowl. Lightly brush the tops of the rugelach with egg wash. Sprinkle with turbinado sugar. Bake 15-17 minutes. Cool on the baking sheet.
Always make rugelach with apricot and walnuts but next time going to try peanut butter and jelly
Yum!
Hi jackie. This was a lovely dough and easy to work with however the recipe would be greatly improved if you would say how many portions to make the dough before you roll it out into the rectangles and also how much jam or filling per rectangle. I started with a half a cup of jam and it was a big huge mess and I took half of it off and rerolled it. It needs more like a quarter cup per rectangle, if that. Just a thought. I have baking experience with rugelach in spirals but thought I would try your recipe for a change. Otherwise very tasty
Hi Shayla, thank you for your feedback! I have updated the recipe to be more clear about the number of dough strips to roll out. Happy Holidays!
Amazing! FYI it might have been just my oven but I found that they needed a good 19 minutes to bake and in fact at 22 minutes they were crunchy on the outside and flakier. I’ve updated the rating now too. Thank you so much for changing it. I will highly recommend this recipe now because they taste divine!!
Thank you so much! And yes – it’s incredible how much difference the oven can make in the bake time. The bake times I provide are always minimums, because I’d rather you have to add time than burn anything!