Dear friends,
Before I even got around to boiling the turkey carcass for soup, I ushered in the holiday baking season with five dozen kifli. At daybreak. For love. Why else would I be hoisting flour sacks and chopping nuts at dawn?
The tender, nut-filled cookies were my gift to Tony as he began hunting season Sunday. After the cookies were cooled and boxed, he headed to
a friend’s cabin for a week of sitting in trees by day and sharing meals after dark. He will cook venison spaghetti one day, but also wanted to share something “made by Jane Snow, my wife.”
Uh huh. I knew he was buttering me up to make cookies for him, not his friends, but what the heck. I wanted to try a new recipe anyway. It was an entry in the Chicago Tribune’s annual Christmas Cookie Contest. I had never heard of let alone tasted “ruszkis” and would remedy that.
I call the cookies “kifli” because that’s what they taste like, but they are different in crucial ways. Instead of a yeast-raised dough rolled into little circles, dolloped with nut filling and rolled to form crescents, the dough is a supple butter-cream cheese pastry made with a mixer. Big balls of the dough are rolled out like pie crust into 9-inch circles, which are spread with nut filling and cut into narrow wedges. The long, thin triangles are then rolled up. When they bake some of the filling oozes from the rolled edges. They look and taste delicious.
I have changed the original recipe slightly because the filling was too dry and the cookies were tiny and tedious to roll when the dough was cut into the specified 16 wedges. Also, I saw no reason to refrigerate the shaped cookies before baking. I tried it both ways and found no difference in the result.
Still, ruszkis are special-occasion cookies. They are not as easy to make as drop or bar cookies, not by a long shot. But the extra effort is worth it at Christmas time, right? I just hope some of them survived the drive to the hunting camp.
RUSZKIS
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
Dough:
1/2 lb. butter, softened
1 egg yolk (save the white for the filling)
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
Filling:
2 1/2 cups walnut halves
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 egg whites
Beat the cream cheese and butter in the large bowl of an electric mixer until very light and fluffy. Beat in egg yolk. In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Add gradually to the butter mixture, beating until the flour has been incorporated and the mixture can be gathered into a ball.
On a floured surface, form dough into a fat log. Divide into five pieces. Wrap each one and refrigerate at least two hours or overnight.
For the filling, pulse the walnuts in three batches in a food processor, until the nuts are chopped fine but not powdered. The bits should be about the size of a grape seed. Scrape into a medium bowl and stir in the sugar.
In a small bowl, use a fork to beat the egg whites with the vanilla until frothy. Pour over the nut mixture and mix thoroughly.
Remove dough from the refrigerator and warm up slightly (enough to roll). Tear off two 11-inch long pieces of waxed paper. On one, use a 9-inch pie pan to outline a circle. One at a time, flour a dough disk and sandwich it between two pieces of floured wax paper, the circle outline facing up. With a rolling pin, roll the dough to a 9-inch circle, using the outline as a guide.
Peel off the top sheet of waxed paper. With a sharp, wet knife, cut the dough circle into 12 wedges. Measure out one-half cup of the filling and sprinkle some on each wedge, leaving the tips bare. Roll up each wedge starting at the outside edge and rolling toward the point. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
While rolling out next dough disk, bake the first batch of cookies at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes, until puffy and edges just start to brown. Transfer to cooling racks. Continue with remaining batches. When completely cool, store in tightly closed containers. Makes 5 dozen.
Note 1: Fruit filling or chunky preserves may be substituted for the walnut filling in some of the cookies.
Note 2: Cream cheese and butter can be softened in a hurry by plopping them (in original wrappers) in a bowl of warm water.
Note 3: I didn’t get around to making the iced lemon Christmas tree cookies on my to-do list, but I will this week. I’ll share the recipe if it is special enough. What holiday cookies are you making this year, or will you skip baking and just buy a few? I’ve been digging the butter cookies topped with sprinkles at Drug Mart, of all places.
GUT CHECK
What I cooked recently:
Roast brussels sprouts, green peppers and butternut squash; sheet pan pork chops with spicy chile sauce and roast sweet potato chunks; roast chicken, mashed potatoes and roast butternut squash; meatloaf, baked potato and roast butternut squash; spaghetti squash baked with ricotta, venison sauce and Parmesan; dry-brined grill-smoked turkey, Bourbon mashed sweet potatoes, mashed Yukon Gold potatoes, gravy, cornbread dressing with toasted walnuts and dried apricots, baby lima beans, pumpkin pie; ruszkis cookies.
What I ate out/carried in:
Cheese burek, kifli and coffee from Kiflis Bakery & Cafe in Cuyahoga Falls; roast lamb, mashed potatoes, roll and salad at Alexandri’s in Wadsworth; Chicken Vlacki and coffee at Village Gardens in Cuyahoga Falls; pepperoni pizza from Big Star in Copley; homemade pecan rolls from a friend.
THE MAILBAG
From C.W.:
I have questions about your Thanksgiving recipes (in the last newsletter). First, would using creminis or even more exotic mushrooms (I have a local grower who provides chestnut mushrooms and various oysters) amp up the stuffing flavors? And for the pie, what about substituting instant espresso powder?
Dear C.W.:
Thanks for your email. I was about to give up on The Mailbag. Yes, you can use any variety of mushroom in the stuffing, the earthier the better. I wish I had access to those chestnut mushrooms. For the pie, I would be careful substituting coffee powder for granules. You may, of course, but I recommend reducing the amount by half.
From Dan C., Rock Hill, S.C.:
I enjoy reading about what you’ve cooked recently, and smiled when I saw your salad with blue cheese, walnuts and pears. These same salad toppings make a great pizza! I caramelize thinly-sliced onions and pears and add those to the pizza crust, which is already topped with a layer of crumbled blue cheese, then sprinkle on toasted chopped nuts (sometimes pecans or hazelnuts instead), then a little more blue cheese and a bit of shredded mozzarella. It’s become one of our favorite pizzas.
It’s getting colder now in South Carolina and I made two double batches of your chili: one to portion for the freezer, and one to share with a local men’s shelter…they loved it!
Dear Dan:
That sounds like the pizza of my dreams. I’ll have to spring it on Tony some evening. Thanks for mentioning the chili (the recipe is in my book, “Jane Snow Cooks”). I need to make a pot soon. As you’ve no doubt heard, it’s getting colder now in Ohio, too. The ground is covered with snow, probably one reason you headed south in retirement. Brrr.
See Jane Cook 