Rugelach

Chocolate rugelach
Type	Pastry
Place of origin	Jewish communities of Poland[1][2][3]
Region or state	Central Europe and Israel
Associated cuisine	Jewish cuisine
Created by	Ashkenazi Jews
Main ingredients	Dough: sour cream or cream cheese Filling: any of raisins, walnuts, cinnamon, chocolate, marzipan, poppy seed, or fruit preserves
Media: Rugelach

Rugelach (/ˈruːɡələx/ ROO-gəl-əkh; Polish: rogaliki, Yiddish: ראגעלעך, or Yiddish: רוגעלעך, romanized: rugelekh and Hebrew: רוגלך rōgalaḵ)^[4] is a filled baked confection originating in the Jewish communities of Poland.^[1][2][3] It has become a popular treat among Jews in the diaspora and in Israel.^[5]

Traditional rugelach are shaped into a crescent by rolling a triangle of dough around a filling.^[6][7] Some sources state that the rugelach and the French croissant share a common Viennese ancestor, crescent-shaped pastries commemorating the lifting of the Turkish siege,^[8] possibly a reference to the Battle of Vienna in 1683. This appears to be an urban legend, however, as both the rugelach and its supposed ancestor, the Kipferl, predate the Early Modern era, while the croissant in its modern form did not originate earlier than the 19th century (see viennoiserie). This leads many to believe that the croissant is simply a descendant of one of these two.

An alternative form is constructed much like a strudel or nut roll, but unlike those, the rolled dough and filling are cut into slices before baking.^[9]

Etymology

The origin of the word comes from the Polish word rogaliki. The -ach ending (־ך) indicates plural, while the el (־ל) can be a diminutive, as, for example, shtetlekh (שטעטלעך, villages) is the plural of shtetl (שטעטל, village), the diminutive of shtot (שטאָט, town). In this case, the root means something like "twist" so the translation would be "little twists", a reference to the shape of this pastry.^[8] In this context, note that rog (ראָג) means "corner" in Yiddish.^[10] In Polish, róg can mean "corner", but can also mean "horn" – both the kind on an animal and the musical instrument. Croissant-shaped pastries, which look like horns, are called rogale in Polish, see rogal świętomarciński. Rogale is almost identical in pronunciation and meaning to the Yiddish word rugelach.

Alternatively, some assert that the root is rugel, meaning "royal", possibly a reference to the taste.^[11] This explanation conflicts with Yiddish usage, where the word keniglich (קעניגליךּ) is the dominant word meaning "royal".^[12]

Ingredients

Rugelach can be made with sour cream or cream cheese doughs,^[6][7][8] but there are also pareve variants (with no dairy ingredients),^[13] so that it can be eaten with or after a meat meal and still be kosher. Cream cheese doughs are the most recent, while yeast leavened^[13][14] and sour cream doughs^[15][16] are much older.

The different fillings can include raisins, walnuts, cinnamon, chocolate, marzipan, poppy seed, or fruit preserves which are rolled up inside. Vanilla-filled rugelach have become popular in New York in recent decades.

In recent years, chefs have introduced savory versions of these pastries, filled with chicken and schmaltz or salmon and boursin cheese.^[17]

• 
  Crescent-shaped rugelach
• 
  Cut rugelach
• 
  Rugelach and Israeli pastries

See also

• American Jewish cuisine
• Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine
• Israeli cuisine
• Jewish cuisine

References

Further reading

• Aish HaTorah Women's Organization (1988). The Taste of Shabbos: The Complete Sabbath Cookbook. Jerusalem: Feldheim Publishers. OCLC 33036781.
• Amendola, Joseph; Rees, Nicole (2003). The Baker's Manual: 150 Master Formulas for Baking (5th (English) ed.). J. Wiley. ISBN 978-0-471-40525-2. OCLC 50252009.
• Bellin, Mildred Grosberg (1983). The Jewish Cookbook International Cooking According to the Jewish Dietary Laws. New York: Bloch. ISBN 978-0-8197-0058-2. OCLC 614538635.
• Bellin, Mildred Grosberg. "Rugelach—Elsie Waldman's Recipe". The Jewish Cookbook.
• Dembinska, Maria; Thomas, Magdalena; Weaver, William Woys (1999). Food and Drink in Medieval Poland: Rediscovering a Cuisine of the Past. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Fertig, Judith M. (2003). All-American Desserts: 400 Star-Spangled, Razzle-Dazzle recipes for America's best loved desserts. Boston: Harvard Common Press. ISBN 978-1-299-89505-8. OCLC 785784600.
• Goltz, Eileen (2003). "Recipes for Shabbat: Rugalach". Orthodox Union. Archived from the original on 6 January 2013. Retrieved 13 June 2017.
• Goodman, Matthew (2005). Jewish Food: The World at Table. New York: HarperCollins.
• Grunes, Barbara (19 October 2012). The Best Bake Sale Ever Cookbook. Chronicle Books. ISBN 978-1-4521-2267-0.
• Harkavy, Alexander (1898). יידיש־ענגלישעס ווערטערבוך [A dictionary of the Yiddish language ...: With a treatise on Yiddish reading, orthography and dialectal variations]. New York: The author. OCLC 19310482.
• Kancigor, Judy Bart (2007). Cooking Jewish: 532 Great Recipes from the Rabinowitz Family. Workman. ISBN 978-0-7611-5965-0. OCLC 966544227.
• Klein, Ernest David (1987). A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language (in Hebrew and English). Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-02-917431-9. OCLC 462199426.
• Lang, George (1982). George Lang's Cuisine of Hungary. New York: Atheneum.
• Marks, Gil (1996). The World of Jewish Cooking (1st paperback ed.). Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-82491-8. OCLC 34690573.
• Nathan, Joan (2004). Joan Nathan's Jewish Holiday Cookbook: Revised and Updated on the Occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the Publication of The Jewish Holiday Kitchen. New York: Schocken Books. ISBN 978-0-8052-4217-1. OCLC 9681693669.
• Olver, Lynne (June 24, 2012). "Food Timeline>Cookies, Crackers & Biscuits". The Food Timeline. Archived from the original on July 17, 2012. Retrieved January 6, 2021.
• Siegel, Helene; Gillingham, Karen (1995). Totally Cookies Cookbook. Berkeley, CA: Celestial Arts Publishing. ISBN 978-0-89087-757-9. OCLC 32312778.