Vegan chocolate rugelach with cinnamon sugar

I’m not much of an SEO-friendly blogger. I kind of half-heartedly type in alt text (the stuff that shows up in lieu of pictures when your internet is all fucked up which provides search engines with information about the pictures so they show up in searches)...I put random shit as tags in posts...my page descriptions (the snippets of text used to preview pages in web searches) are kind of not-so-hot.

And, I mean, I don’t really care. It’s just a blog. My only real goal is to entertain you and take pictures of moderately tasty shit. And maybe navel-gaze a little.

C'mon, who doesn't like a little navel-gazing? source

But sometimes, I do get some traffic from Google searches and such. And sometimes, just sometimes, it’s a little weird. Like the other day.

I'll admit, I got a little worried for a second there.

Which is bizarre, because I have never, not once, talked about farting. I don’t think. That’s just...not my thing, you know?

Me, practitioner of false advertising? Never!

Some search terms reflect topics I have mentioned once or twice, like bananas and maraschino cherries.

But seriously, why would you want to buy green maraschino cherries?

Others are just perplexing and frankly make me wonder what the hell these Googlers were thinking.

I have nothing to say but "wut".

Sometimes I wish I actually could help the poor interneter, that I wasn’t just a vegan baking blogger with no expertise in the realm of making t-shirts about Kanye West lyrics.

Now I want one.

A lot of the terms have to do with the “mind = blown” meme, or the blueberry casserole meme—wait, what?

Okay.

I could go on. There are pages of this shit, from “caramel s sex” to “Finnish blood pancakes” to well maybe you just don’t want to know. Search engines are strange and beautiful things, but the people who use them are even stranger (and maybe more beautiful).

Now! Let’s talk about this rugelach.

Aw yiss.

I was introduced to the Jewish cookie over a year ago, before I got serious (LOL as if I am now) about this here blog. Interested in trying my hand at the cute little rolls of dough and sweet fillings, I found a basic recipe for apricot nut rugelach and whipped some up for a party. They were a hit, to say the least.

But I hadn’t tried it again until, last week, my mom and I went on a bakery-hunting trip to Manhattan. We stopped at Veniero’s Bakery shortly before seeing Wicked and picked up a slice of cake as well as a little bag of rugelach. And let me tell you, that bakery was something else. Their display case was a mile long (almost) and filled to the brim with pastries, cakes, cheesecakes, and cookies, everything made from scratch with authentic Italian recipes. I was ridiculously giddy. You wouldn’t have wanted to be there, because it was pretty embarrassing.

Not that it matters, because we walked out of there with three amazing flavors of rugelach—raspberry almond, apricot, and chocolate. Like the apricot rugelach I had made a while back, they were rolled up like cinnamon rolls, not croissants. And they were fucking delicious. I took a liking to the chocolate flavor, which was sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, and decided to replicate it myself. 

I'd say it was a success.

I used the dough recipe from the cookbook Vegan Desserts to great success—it was flaky and buttery and everything rugelach dough should be. Now, I’ll admit—I did use some fake cream cheese, BUT you must understand that cream cheese is basically essential to making true rugelach. I even remember one of my friend’s parents, who is Jewish, asking me if there was cream cheese in the dough during that party last year. It’s serious business.

So I may have broken my resolution again, but I’d say the deliciousness was worth a little sinning.

Here’s the recipe.

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Vegan chocolate rugelach with cinnamon sugar

Adapted from Vegan Desserts

Makes about 24 cookies

Ingredients

Dough

120 grams • nondairy cream cheese, at room temperature • ½ cup

112 grams • coconut oil, softened • ½ cup

170 grams • all-purpose flour • 1 ¼ cups

1 gram • baking powder • ¼ teaspoon

Pinch salt

Filling

170 grams • semisweet chocolate, finely chopped • 6 ounces

12 grams • granulated sugar • 1 tablespoon

14 grams • light brown sugar • 1 tablespoon

10 grams • cocoa powder • 2 tablespoons

Topping

24 grams • granulated sugar • 2 tablespoons

2 grams • cinnamon • 1 teaspoon

Directions

To make dough, start by placing cream cheese and coconut oil in the bowl of an electric stand mixer. Beat until smooth. With mixer on low speed, spoon in flour, followed by baking powder and salt. Mix just until the dough comes together.

Divide dough in half and wrap up tightly in plastic wrap. Chill for at least 2 hours.

To make filling, simply combine ingredients in a small bowl. Combine the cinnamon and sugar for the topping. Set aside.

Once dough has chilled, preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Take out one half of the chilled dough and roll out to about ¼ to 1/8-inch thick on a well-floured surface, keeping the dough in a nice rectangular shape. Sprinkle about half of the chocolate filling on top. Carefully roll up the dough from the long end, then, using a serrated knife, cut cookies about an inch wide or less. Like tiny cinnamon rolls!

Repeat with the other half of dough. Place cookies on prepared baking sheets and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes, or until lightly browned. Let cool completely on baking sheets before munching (oh who am I kidding).

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Who cuts their rugelach with a fork? I do, of course.

In the near future, I hope to make some more rugelach flavors to replicate the amazing little cookies we had in New York City. But in the meantime, here are some other recipes you can check out.

Chocolate hazelnut babka with streusel topping. Another rolled-up treat.

Mini gingerbread chocolate layer cake. For when you just want a leeeetle bit of cake.

Sweet potato cheesecake cookies with chocolate drizzle. These cookies are mind-blowing.