What is Rugelach?
Rugelach is a delicious and beloved Jewish pastry of Eastern European origin. These delightful treats are made from a flaky and buttery dough rolled into a crescent shape. The dough is typically filled with sweet ingredients such as fruit preserves, chocolate, nuts, or cinnamon sugar. Once baked, rugelach develops a golden-brown exterior and a delectable, tender interior. With its delightful textures and flavors, rugelach is popular for holidays and celebrations.
What does Rugelach Taste Like?
Sweet is one of the five main tastes. It has smooth and round notes in its flavor profile. Sweet is a naturally occurring flavor in many foods, including fruits, berries, winter squashes, sugarcane, and honey. The sweet taste in these foods is due to a higher sugar content. Sweetness is characteristic of desserts and is used as an accent in savory foods.
Ingredients
All purpose flour comes from wheat and though wheat is cultivated all around the world today, it was first cultivated in Turkey 10,000 years ago. All purpose flour is white in color and has a soft texture. This incredibly versatile flour is used in everything from breads, cakes, pastries, crackers, pasta, sauces and much more because of its pleasing and mild flavor that is slightly nutty and buttery. The gluten protein is what helps hold together breads and other products, part of what makes all purpose wheat flour so popular.
Cream cheese is a popular American dairy product. It is a fresh cheese with a mild flavor that can be slightly tangy. It has a high fat content, as it is made from cream and milk. Cream cheese is white and has a thick and spreadable consistency. It is served on bread, bagels and other baked goods and is popular in desserts and dips.
Butter is made from churned cream, usually from a cow. It has a cream color and a texture that is smooth and melts easily. The flavor is mild and creamy. Butter is often sold in square sticks, or as a flat or round block. It is delicious on bread. It pairs better in baked goods than salted butter, due to its more neutral taste. It also makes an excellent cooking fat.
Sugar comes from sugar cane and sugar beets. The sugar is extracted from the juice of both plants and refined into the granulated substance known as sugar. Sucrose, the sweet substance of sugar is a combination of glucose and fructose. White sugar is composed of tiny white, dry granules. The flavor is sweet and neutral. Brown sugar is brown and has more moisture, with a richer flavor that hints at molasses. Sugar is used in both sweet and savory foods.
Walnuts are technically a seed and not a nut, but are used as a nut in the culinary world. Walnuts have a hard shell around them and a dry skin that surrounds the nut. The shell and skin are removed and the meat of the nut is eaten. Walnuts are a light brown/tan color and have a wrinkled top divided into two halves and resembles a brain. The flavor is mild with hints of tannins and sweetness. They are a rich and fatty nut which imparts an umami taste.
Brandy is commonly made from grapes or apples, though it can be made from many sources, fruit is the most common. Brandy is a liquor that has been fermented and distilled and has an amber color. Brandy has a strong alcohol flavor with notes that vary depending on the fruit that is used and how long it is aged. Flavors examples range from fruity to oak-like. Brandy is generally served on the rocks or as a cocktail. It is also used in desserts for additional flavoring.
Eggs are an incredibly versatile protein and binder. Most eggs used in cooking come from hens and are usually unfertilized. Eggs are oval shaped and roughly 53 mm in length and 40 mm in width. Eggs have a hard, but thin and delicate shell that is brown or white and occasionally green. Inside is the clear and glossy white, with a slimy texture and in the center is the yellow opaque, round shaped yolk. Once cooked, the whites become opaque. Eggs can be scrambled, fried, boiled, and more. They are used in desserts and baked goods as a binder. Egg is also used as a wash to glaze items or dip meat into before breading it. The flavor is mild and sulfurous. It has many uses.
Ground cinnamon is a fine aromatic powder made from the bark of the cinnamon tree, also known as cassia; another variety. The bark is peeled from the tree, dried and ground into the warm brown powder that is known as cinnamon. The flavor is spicy, warm and sweet and savory at the same time. It is extremely popular in many cuisines and common in American desserts.
Salt is a mineral composed mostly of sodium chloride. It is the main flavoring used in food and is naturally occurring in certain foods, such as cheese, beets, meat and celery, plus many others. Salt is white and has finer granules than sugar. Many commercial salts include iodide, while others exclude it. Most salts are white, while some are naturally pale pink with minerals. Salt brings out the flavor of something and can create a tangy mouthfeel, if used in excess.
