Apple Honey Rugelach

Celebrate a sweet new year with apple honey rugelach! Tender cream cheese pastry crescents, filled with apples and honey- perfect for Rosh Hashanah!

Good morning my friend!  I hope you had a wonderful weekend and are starting this new week feeling refreshed.  I know I am!

We celebrated my mom’s birthday this weekend with a redux of this cake.  Wow!  I hadn’t had it in a couple of years, and I just wanted to test it out again to see if it was as good as I remembered.  It was even better, lol!  I wish I had had the time to snap some updated pics, but I was pulled in too many different directions.  I’ve got a couple more trips coming up this week that I had to prepare for.  But the cake was just lovely, and so was the time we spent with mom.  If you know a vanilla-caramel-cashew lover, you should definitely make them this cake!

Now we are coming up on Rosh Hashanah, which is my favorite of all the Jewish holidays.  I love it because it’s happy, and you don’t have to deny yourself of anything!  Yom Kippur is the day of atonement, so it tends to be somber.  Plus they have to fast all day long.  Nothing enjoyable about that.  And Passover is nice, but you can’t have anything leavened or even made with flour, for that matter.  Rosh Hashanah is the one major Jewish holiday that’s just about celebrating and eating all the things you love the most.  Especially apples and honey!

I knew nothing about Jewish culture until I met my husband, but now that we’ve been together for almost 15 years, I feel like I have a pretty decent understanding of the holidays and the food.  I have learned that Rosh Hashana is the celebration of a new year.  The hope is that the year will be sweet, and that is why apples and honey are so significant- they represent a sweet and happy year that we all look forward to.

My husband’s family is Ashkenazi, as opposed to Sephardic.  There are two main types of Jewish cultures, Ashkenazi (which is Eastern European) and Sephardic (which descend from Spain, Northern Africa, and the Middle East).  The cuisines are vastly different from one another.  As I’m sure you can imagine!

Ashkenazi food is more or less what you’d find at a Jewish deli.  Things like smoked fish, bagels, brisket, matzoh ball soup, and stuff like that.  As for desserts, one of my favorites is rugelach.  It’s kind of like a cookie, kind of like a croissant.  The pastry itself is really simple.  It’s rich and tender, and made with cream cheese, which is another favorite in Jewish cuisine.

You can fill rugelach with just about anything.  I’ve seen it a lot with dried apricot, cinnamon/brown sugar, raspberry, even chocolate!  But for today’s recipe, I chose to do an apple honey rugelach, because it’s so significant for this holiday.

It consists of grated apple, walnuts, honey, cinnamon, and a little red wine.  Technically, this filling is a take on charoset.  Charoset symbolizes the mortar the Israelites used when they were enslaved in ancient Egypt.  There is a lot of symbolism in Judaism!

Forming the apple honey rugelach is actually a lot easier than it looks.  Just roll out the cream cheese pastry in a big, flat circle and top it with a thin layer of filling.  Then, cut the circle into wedges and roll them up, crescent-style.  I have a cool little gif of how it all goes down here.

After that, they bake up to tender, golden perfection!  I’ve garnished them with a mixture of sparkling sugar, cinnamon, and finely chopped walnuts.  It gives a fantastic crunch!

If you’re looking for a great dessert recipe to serve or bring to Rosh Hashana dinner, I hope you’ll give these apple honey rugelach a try!  L’Shanah Tovah!

More great apple recipes, for Rosh Hashanah or any fall occasion!

This post contains affiliate sales links.

No ratings yet

Apple Honey Rugelach

Servings: 32 32 pastries (approx.)

Prep Time: 30 minutes mins

Cook Time: 26 minutes mins

Chill Time:: 1 hour hr

Total Time: 56 minutes mins

Celebrate a sweet new year with apple honey rugelach! Tender cream cheese pastry crescents, filled with apples and honey- perfect for Rosh Hashanah!

Print Recipe Leave a Review Save RecipeSaved!

Ingredients

For the cream cheese dough

• ▢ 1 cup unsalted butter, (2 sticks), softened
• ▢ 8 ounces cream cheese, (1 block), softened
• ▢ 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• ▢ 2 cups all-purpose flour
• ▢ 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

For the apple honey (charoset) filling

• ▢ 2 apples,, peeled, cored, and coarsely grated
• ▢ 1 cup finely chopped walnuts
• ▢ 1/4 cup red wine
• ▢ 1/3 cup honey
• ▢ 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• ▢ 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the topping

• ▢ 1/4 cup finely chopped walnuts
• ▢ 1/4 cup sparkling sugar, (granulated sugar can be substituted)
• ▢ 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ▢ 1 egg, , beaten with 1 tablespoon water

Instructions

 

To make the cream cheese dough:

• Place the butter, cream cheese, and sugar in a large mixing bowl and beat on medium speed until fluffy.  Stir in the flour and salt on low speed until combined.  Divide the dough into 4 equal portions, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for one hour.

To make the apple honey (charoset) filling:

• Place the apples, walnuts, red wine, honey, flour and cinnamon in a medium bowl and stir to combine.

To form the rugelach:

• Dust the work surface with flour and use a rolling pin to roll one of the dough balls to a circle about 1/8-inch thick.  Top the circle with 1/4 of the charoset mixture, spreading it into a thin, even layer.  Cut the circle into 8 large triangles.  Starting at the large end of a triangle, roll the dough and filling, tucking the point under.  Bend into a crescent shape and place on parchment-lined baking sheets.  Repeat with the remaining dough balls.  Refrigerate the pastries for 30 minutes.

To top and bake the rugelach:

• Place the walnuts, sugar, and cinnamon in a small bowl and stir to combine.
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Brush the rugelach with egg wash and sprinkle with the walnut topping.  Bake the rugelach for 26 to 34 minutes, or until golden brown.

Calories: 168kcal, Carbohydrates: 15g, Protein: 2g, Fat: 11g, Saturated Fat: 5g, Cholesterol: 28mg, Sodium: 44mg, Potassium: 58mg, Sugar: 7g, Vitamin A: 285IU, Vitamin C: 0.6mg, Calcium: 19mg, Iron: 0.6mg

Cuisine: Jewish

Course: Dessert, Snack

Tried this recipe?Mention @bakingamoment on Instagram or tag #bakingamoment.