
I have never had much luck with yeast. Sometimes it pulls through for me and gives me the rise I need for whatever recipe I happen to be futzing with that day. And other times….well, Disappointment City.

When I prepped this variation of rugelach, I was worried that I’d be saddle with sadness, instead of a stretchy, tender dough. I am pleased to say that I was wrong. I copped this recipe from food blog titans, Smitten Kitchen and the Pioneer Woman, and oh man, was it ever worth it. Admittedly, not as good as a cinnamon roll, but damn near.

Now it didn’t make as many as directed, but it sure made plenty for Matt to take to work. (Seriously, how popular am I now at that office?) I omitted the currants mostly because it already had chocolate, cinnamon-sugar, nuts and raspberry jam—not to mention the cream cheese frosting. Dried fruit just seemed one more thing too many for me.

And then I made pie. Good old fashioned Southern chess pie.

Add some orange zest and juice and you have got yourself a sweet-tart custardy pie. Brew up the coffee because this pie needs it.
Ranch Rugelach
courtesy of Pioneer Woman AND Smitten Kitchen
Dough
2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil (I haven’t tried this with melted butter instead, but if you do, let us know how it goes)
1/2 cup sugar
1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour plus plenty of extra for flouring the surface
1/2 heaping (slightly more) teaspoon baking powder
1/2 scant (slightly less) teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Filling
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup light or dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 cup jelly or jam (raspberry and/or apricot are traditional, but anything you like will work), divided
6 tablespoons salted butter melted (or unsalted, with a pinch of salt in it), divided
1 cup finely chopped walnuts or pecans (although there’s no reason you can’t use any other nut you prefer), divided
2/3 cup finely chopped semisweet chocolate or miniature chocolate chips, divided (optional, but use slightly more dried fruit if you’re omitting this)
2/3 cup dried currants or chopped dark raisins, divided
Glaze
3 tablespoons butter, softened
3 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup milk, approximately
Make the dough: Mix the milk, vegetable oil and 1/2 cup sugar in a large pot, and heat it until just before it boils. Turn off the heat, remove the pot from the burner, and let it cool for 45 minutes to one hour. When the mixture is lukewarm, sprinkle in the yeast and let it sit for a minute or two before adding the four cups of flour. Stir the mixture together, cover the pot and let it sit for at least an hour. After an hour the dough should be a giant, puffy but still pretty wet. Add another 1/2 cup of flour, the baking powder, baking soda and salt and stir the mixture together. Either use it right away, or cover the dough and put it in the fridge until you’re ready to use it — overnight or up to a day or two. If it starts to overflow in the pot, press it down.
Roll out the dough: Generously flour a large counter — the dough is very wet and sticky. Dump half the dough onto it, flour your rolling pin well, and roll the dough into a large rectangle about 24 inches wide and as thin as you get it in the other direction (ours ended up about 12 inches deep).
Fill the rolls: Generously spray two 12-cup muffin tins with a cooking spray, or butter them well. Go ahead and spray the flat part too, so if your jam bubbles out of the buns, it will be easier to scrub off. (This is what years of a dishwasher-less experience will teach you!)
Stir together the 1/3 cup sugar, brown sugar and cinnamon and set it aside. Spread one half of your jam evenly over the dough, leaving a 1/2-inch margin at the wider ends. (If your jam is cold from the fridge, you can heat it slightly in a small saucepan or in the microwave, not until bubbling hot but until warm enough to easily spread.)
Drizzle three tablespoons melted butter over the jam layer. (Although it would be intuitive to do it in the other order, I was concerned that the jam wouldn’t spread well over the slick melted butter. Plus, I wanted the melted butter to mingle with the cinnamon sugar, as it would in a traditional cinnamon roll. Drooling yet?)
Sprinkle the jam and butter layer with 1/4 cup of the cinnamon-sugar mixture, then half of the nuts, half the chocolate and half the dried fruit.
Starting with the wider side of the rectangle (the one that should be 24 inches), begin to tightly roll the dough, incorporating the filling. Once it is fully rolled up, cut it into two-inch segments with a sharp knife (a serrated knife works great here). Place one in each muffin cup. Sprinkle the tops of the rolls with a tablespoon of the cinnamon-sugar mixture and set the tin aside to puff some more, about 20 to 30 minutes. (You could loosely cover it with plastic wrap, but we didn’t bother.)
Repeat this process with the other half of the dough, and the remaining filling ingredients.
Preheat your oven to 350°F.
Bake the rolls: Bake your rolls for 15 to 20 minutes, until they’re golden at the edges and the filling looks bubbly. (I was using a convection oven at the Lodge, which is nothing like my oven at home so your baking time may vary. Look for a nice color and that bubbling filling before you take them out.)
Let the rolls mostly cool on a rack.
Make the glaze: Beat the butter, cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla together in a bowl with an electric mixture until fluffy. From here, you can either spread this frosting on your lukewarm buns, or thin it with milk until it is more of a drizzling consistency. Eat one at once.
Orange Buttermilk Chess Pie
For the cream cheese pie dough:
5 tbl. unsalted butter, room temperature
1 (3. 0z) pkg. cream cheese, room temperature
2 tbl. granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup AP flour
1/4 tsp. baking powder
For the filling:
4 eggs
2 cups granulated sugar
1 tbl. cornmeal
1 tbl. AP flour
1/2 tsp. salt
zest from 1 orange
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/4 cup buttermilk
3 tbl. balsamic vinegar (trust me; it makes a simple pie CLASSY)
1 1/2 tbl. fresh orange juice
1 1/2 tbl. lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
To prepare the dough:
In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter, cream cheese, sugar and salt. Sift together the flour and baking powder, then on slow speed, add in the mixture. Let it mix, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary, until the ingredients come together and the dough is formed. Gather the dough into a ball, press into a disk, wrap in plastic and chill until needed. Let dough rest for a few minutes at room temperature before rolling out. Roll out between two sheets of parchment paper into an 11-inch circle. Remove the paper and transfer the dough to a 9-inch pie pan. Trim the excess dough and flute the edge. Chill until ready to use.
To prepare the filling:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs. Whisk in the sugar, cornmeal, flour, salt and orange zest until well-combined. Whisk in the butter, buttermilk, vinegar, orange juice, lemon juice and vanilla extract. Stir until fully combined.
Pour the mixture into the prepared pie shell and bake for 20 minutes. Reduce the heat to 300, rotate the pan and cook for 20 to 30 minutes, until the filling is just set in the center and slightly brown on top. (If the edges of the crust begin to get too brown, cover the edges only with aluminum foil.) The pie will firm up as it cools.