rugelach | Eating The World

Happy Hanukkah! Today is the 2nd day of Hanukkah and we are of course thinking of one of our favorite Hanukkah foods, babka. We have expressed our love here many times before for babka. However, sometimes you don’t want a whole loaf of babka (I assume it is possible), in which case you may be in the mood for rugelach, which we like to think of as a bite-sized babka substitute. Rugelach is a traditional Polish-Jewish sweet, basically a cookie rolled up with tasty filling – often cinnamon or chocolate – though any filling is possible! Unlike babka, which is brioche-based, rugelach is often made with a sour cream or cream cheese dough. Serious Eats has a compendium of various rugelach fillings, including a non-traditional red bean. Taste of Home, Tori Avey and Molly Yeh (chocolate sea salt and halva version picture below) have compiled even more versions!

Halva Rugelach by Molly Yeh

There is a major tradition around eating fried food for Hanukkah, since oil is such an essential part to the Hanukkah story – a miracle that allowed one day’s worth of oil to light a menorah for eight days. Though we love the traditional fried donuts sfenj and sufganiyot – there is also another Hanukkah tradition we have just learned about – eating cheese! The origins of eating cheese on Hanukkah begins with the story of Judith, who is said to have given an enemy general salty cheese to make him thirsty, becase of this he became drunk, allowing her to later kill him. So that may be a little morbid… but the importance of cheese to the story has led to delicious cultural traditions of enjoying cheese at Hanukkah time! Though the tradition is not as big in the US – it has a stronger foothold in Europe. Popular ways to enjoy cheese on Hanukkah are tasty Italian ricotta latkes, cream cheese rugelach and cheese blintzes.

Cheese Blintzes by Eliza Adam

Tag Archives: rugelach

Rugelach for Hanukkah

The hidden tradition of cheese for Hanukkah

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