Recipe
🍰 DESSERT
Rugelach
Little rolled pastry crescents filled with chocolate or cinnamon, a bakery staple of Israel and the Jewish diaspora.
Israeli · medium · serves 24
prep 40 min · cook 20 min
~216 cal · 3g protein · 29g carbs · 10g fat · 1g fiber · 15g sugars · 6g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Rugelach are beloved rolled pastries with roots in the Jewish communities of Central and Eastern Europe, carried to Israel where they became a cornerstone of the bakery counter. In Jerusalem especially, warm, glossy chocolate rugelach are an object of genuine devotion.
The Israeli rugelach is its own creature, quite distinct from the flaky cream-cheese cookie of American bakeries: it is built on a soft, enriched yeast dough, closer to babka, rolled around a generous layer of dark chocolate, shaped into little crescents, and left to prove before baking. Straight from the oven the warm rugelach are brushed with sugar syrup, which gives them their signature glossy sheen and moist, tender crumb. Not too sweet and best eaten warm, they are made for coffee.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and nut- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 24
3 cups flour
2 tsp instant yeast
1/4 cup sugar (for the dough)
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg (for the dough)
2/3 cup warm milk
1/2 cup butter, softened (for the dough)
1 1/2 cups dark chocolate, grated, and cocoa (for the filling)
1/3 cup butter, melted (for the filling)
1/2 cup brown sugar (for the filling)
1 egg, beaten (to glaze)
1/2 cup sugar syrup (to finish)
Instructions
1
Make a soft enriched dough with the flour, yeast, dough sugar, salt, egg, warm milk, and softened butter; knead until smooth and let rise until doubled, about 1.5 hours.
✎ Chef’s note
Israeli rugelach are a yeasted, babka-like pastry, not a cream-cheese cookie. Knead the dough well and give it a proper warm rise for a light, tender crumb.
2
Mix the grated chocolate and cocoa with the melted butter and brown sugar into a spreadable chocolate paste.
3
Roll the dough into large thin rectangles, spread with the chocolate filling, and cut into long narrow triangles; roll each up from the wide end into a crescent.
✎ Chef’s note
Roll the triangles up snugly so the crescents hold their spiral and trap the chocolate inside.
4
Arrange on lined trays, let rise again until puffy, then brush with the beaten egg.
5
Bake at 355F (180C) until golden, about 18 minutes, then brush the hot rugelach generously with sugar syrup for a glossy, moist finish.
Israeli and Jewish-diaspora baking.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Tel Aviv. Tel Aviv turned street food into an art, with hummus eaten warm as a meal, sabich stuffed with fried eggplant and egg, and shakshuka served in the pan. Its kitchens draw on Mizrahi, Ashkenazi, Palestinian, and North African traditions at once.
🗺️
Israel. Several dishes here have documented arrival dates rather than ancient roots. Shakshuka is North African, brought by Libyan and Tunisian Jewish immigrants and only widely popular from the 1990s; sabich was assembled in Ramat Gan in the early 1960s from an Iraqi-Jewish Shabbat breakfast of egg, fried aubergine and amba. Hummus and falafel are Levantine and genuinely contested, with Palestinian claims actively made.
🌍
Asia. A grain line runs across the continent. Rice dominates the wet south and east, wheat the drier north and west, and the tools follow it: the wok and the steamer where rice is milled, the tandoor and the griddle where wheat is ground. Tea travels the other way, drunk green, black, salted, buttered or with milk depending how far it got from China.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Israel
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Jerusalem Mixed GrillMeorav Yerushalmi: chicken and offal seared fast with onion, cumin, and turmeric, stuffed into laffa.
MalawachA flaky, buttery Yemenite-Israeli pan-fried flatbread served with grated tomato and zhug.
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Good to know
You’ll need: Oven.
Storing it: Store in an airtight container. Most keep 2 to 3 days at room temperature, and longer refrigerated.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Rugelach?
Little rolled pastry crescents filled with chocolate or cinnamon, a bakery staple of Israel and the Jewish diaspora.
Where does Rugelach come from?
Rugelach is a Israeli dish from Tel Aviv, Israel.
Can Rugelach be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Rugelach recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Rugelach safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Rugelach take to make?
About 60 minutes total (40 minutes prep, 20 minutes cooking), serving 24.
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