Chocolate Rugelach

This chocolate rugelach recipe calls for all the traditional ingredients but takes a vegan turn with the help of a cream cheese-style spread.

Course Dessert

Cuisine Jewish

1 TB cinnamon
3 TB granulated sugar a lot of sugar producers use bone-char filters; but there are a few that don’t
½ cup pecans chopped
½ cup dark chocolate chopped
½ cup dried cranberries chopped
2 TB coconut oil melted

In a food processor, pulse all the ingredients until it looks like couscous or quinoa. Dump it into a mixing bowl and bring it all together to make a ball. Cut it in half, make two squares, wrap them in plastic, and refrigerate for at least an hour.
On a lightly floured surface, roll out one square into a rectangle that’s about 11”x 6” — it should fit comfortably inside a jelly roll pan. Because coconut oil’s melting point is low (about 75℉ compared to butter’s 90℉ melting point), you have to be careful to turn the dough each time you roll it out with as much flour as necessary to keep it from sticking to your work surface and rolling pin. If it gets too soft to work with, stick it in the freezer for a couple minutes.

Preheat oven to 400℉.
Lay the rolled out dough on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Brush the dough with the melted coconut oil.
Sprinkle half of the cinnamon-sugar mixture on the dough, leaving one edge naked.
Sprinkle half of the nut-chocolate mixture on top of the cinnamon and sugar mixture.
Fold up the undressed edge of the dough to begin rolling it to make a long cylinder of dough.
Place the dough (still on the pan) in the freezer for about 30 minutes.
Slice the dough into about 1” pieces, but keep them in line with the cylinder so they don’t fall over while they’re baking.
Brush the pieces with coconut milk and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for about 20 minutes and the edges are browned (the tops probably won’t brown much).
Repeat process for second square of dough.

Keyword chocolate, cookies