Cottage cheese rugelach — a simple and delicious homemade baked treat made with cottage cheese dough. I already have quite a few cottage cheese dough recipes on my site, including various cookies, such as Cottage Cheese "Ears" Cookies and Savory Cottage Cheese Cookies. Cottage cheese dough also works beautifully for options like Cottage Cheese Braid with Apples and even a Meat Pie with Cheese. But let's get back to today's cottage cheese rugelach. For the dough, I used egg yolks, and the leftover egg whites went right into the filling — very convenient, since nothing goes to waste. I made the cottage cheese dough just slightly sweet by adding a little powdered sugar, while the filling itself is much sweeter. This gives you a wonderful flavor contrast between the soft, delicate cottage cheese dough and the sweet filling. These rugelach bake up very quickly, so it's important to catch them at just the right moment — still incredibly tender but already a beautiful golden color. It's best to use good-quality, natural cottage cheese for the dough; I used 9% fat cottage cheese in block form, similar to a homestyle variety. Dry cottage cheese, especially fat-free, unfortunately won't give you as good a result. If you'd like, you can make these rugelach with a jam filling instead — skip the meringue and just use jam. You can also use jam together with the meringue, and that turns out absolutely wonderful too! This recipe made 32 cottage cheese rugelach, each about 4–5 cm long.
Ingredients:
- Dough:
- 200 g flour
- 200 g cottage cheese
- 100 g butter
- 20 g powdered sugar
- 2 egg yolks
- 0.5 tsp baking powder
- pinch of salt
- Meringue:
- 2 egg whites
- 60-100 g sugar
How to cook cottage cheese rugelach
Make the dough. Place the flour in a food processor, then add the powdered sugar, baking powder, and salt. Mix together, then add small pieces of butter and crumbled cottage cheese on top.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide it into two portions. Knead each portion just until it comes together into a smooth, soft ball. Don't overwork the cottage cheese dough, as it can become tough after baking. Refrigerate the dough for 30–40 minutes or overnight.
Prepare the filling. Place the egg whites in a clean, dry bowl and begin beating with a whisk. Gradually add the sugar, continuing to beat. Beat to stiff peaks, just as you would for classic meringue.
Shape the cottage cheese rugelach. Roll out the first half of the dough into a thin circle about 32 cm in diameter.
Cut the dough into 16 wedges. I used a pizza cutter, which is the most convenient tool for this, but a regular knife works just fine too.
Roll up each wedge of cottage cheese dough and filling into a crescent shape. Some of the meringue will peek out along the edges — that's perfectly normal.
Repeat the same process with the second portion of cottage cheese dough. Transfer the rugelach to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Both circles of dough will yield 32 rugelach in total.
Bake in an oven preheated to 180°C for approximately 10–20 minutes. Bake until the tops are lightly golden but the bottoms haven't started to burn. These cottage cheese rugelach bake quite quickly since they're small.
The rugelach are delicious straight from the oven while still warm, once they've cooled, and even later on. They're always tasty, just in different ways. Right out of the oven, cottage cheese rugelach are incredibly tender, with a soft, airy crumb almost like yeasted dough. Once fully cooled, the inside stays just as soft and tender while the outside develops a light, crisp crust. As they sit, the cottage cheese rugelach become a little less delicate, denser, and more cookie-like — but they're still absolutely delicious! Cottage cheese rugelach are a wonderfully tender and tasty treat!
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