Monday, March 1, 2010

Gluten Free Chocolate Cinnamon Rugelach

Happy belated Purim!
I was going to make hamentaschen, but then my friend Dena brought me some that she baked last night. They were awesome! So, I figured this was also fairly traditional. Perhaps my mom won't nag me as much now about my total lack of religious observance (I mean, as far as I'm concerned, most Jewish holidays basically amount to "they tried to kill us, they failed, let's eat", so making rugelach is kind of in line with that, right?)

Ingredients
1/3 cup brown rice flour
1/3 cup sweet rice flour
1/4 cup potato starch
1 egg
1 brick cream cheese (I used lowfat Philadelphia)
1 stick butter
1 tbsp stevia (or sugar)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp vanilla
1 packet instant hot cocoa mix (no marshmallows!)
1/3 bag of very small chocolate chips (I use Enjoy Life Foods)

Mix the flours, stevia and vanilla together in a food processor.
Divide the cream cheese brick in half, and cut one of the halves into 4-5 chunks.
Put the other half-brick aside.
Cut the butter into chunks. Add the cream cheese and butter to the food processor, pulse a couple of times, and then blitz the mixture until it looks like large lumps.

Take the mixture and form two medium-sized dough balls. Wrap the balls in plastic wrap and put them in the fridge for about 2o minutes.

In a separate bowl, mix together the remaining half brick of cream cheese, cinnamon and hot cocoa mix until thoroughly blended. Add the chocolate chips and thoroughly mix.

Take each dough ball out of the fridge and roll into a flat rectangle shape (or as close to a rectangle as you can get.) The dough should be 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick. Slather the filling (don't you just love the word slather?) onto the dough, leaving about an inch on each side, and carefully roll into a log. Wrap the log in plastic wrap and store in the fridge for about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Place the two logs on a lined baking sheet, and brush them with an egg wash. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown. Wait until the logs are cool (or mostly cool) before slicing them into cookies.

Makes about a dozen rugelach.

Another filling variation is to use the preserves or jam of your choice. If you do this, I would thicken the jam with a little cornstarch, and go easy on the filling--otherwise it will have a tendency to ooze out while cooking, making it look more like rugel--uccch than rugelach.

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