Adzuki Red Bean Rugelach

Adzuki Red Bean Rugelach

This Jewish-Asian cookie pays homage to the crispy, buttery and sweet Jewish pastry: the rugelach and the widely popular Asian dessert filling: adzuki red bean paste. The pastry dough and red bean paste are rolled together and tossed in turbinado sugar and baked, creating a cookie that is nutty, sweet, buttery and crispy.


Adzuki Red Bean Rugelach

The Idea

When I was little, I often take the train home from Grand Central Terminal. On my way to the train track, I pass by a couple of Jewish bakeries in the station and I just couldn’t resist picking up a thing or two from their glass display of neatly organized pastries and stacks of bread. One of my favorite things to get was the rugelach. Rugelach is a flakey, buttery, croissant-shaped, bite-sized pastry-cookie hybrid that is typically swirled with chocolate or jam. It is affordable and comes in an assortment of flavors. I just love the texture and the balance of the sweet filling and buttery pastry.

One of my favorite dessert fillings is adzuki red bean paste. In China and Japan, it is so common I would compare it to the American use of chocolate. You can find the red bean paste as a filling in steamed buns and baked bread, as a topping in drinks and cold desserts, as a flavor of ice cream… and much more. And the best part? It is super easy to make and is more healthful in terms of sweets goes! I made a big batch last week in my slow cooker and since then, I have been trying to come up with different ways to use them. Rugelach was one of the first ideas that came to mind. How wonderful it would be to spiral in red bean in rugelach pastry!

About the cookie

This Jewish-Asian fusion cookie pays homage to the crispy, buttery and sweet rugelach and the popular Asian dessert filling, adzuki red bean paste. The rugelach pastry dough and red bean paste are rolled together and tossed in turbinado sugar and baked, creating a cookie that is nutty, sweet, buttery and crispy. It is demanding in terms of time, but the ingredients and steps are simple and everything can be made ahead of time and assembled. Let me know if you have tried this, I would love to hear your thoughts! Give me a tag on Instagram: @craving_nomz.

Adzuki Red Bean Rugelach
Adzuki Red Bean Rugelach

Adzuki Red Bean Rugelach

This Jewish-Asian cookie pays homage to the crispy, buttery and sweet Jewish pastry: the rugelach and the widely popular Asian dessert filling: adzuki red bean paste. The pastry dough and red bean paste are rolled together and tossed in turbinado sugar and baked, creating a cookie that is nutty, sweet, buttery and crispy
Course: Dessert, Snack
Keyword: cookies
Servings: 12 peices

Ingredients

  • 40 g cream cheese chilled
  • 40 g unsalted butter chilled
  • 45 g all purpose flour
  • 1/8 tsp salt
  • 3-4 tbsp red bean paste homemade or store brought
  • 1 egg + 1 tsp water
  • coarse sugar

Instructions

  • Combine flour and salt. Cut cold butter and cream cheese into the flour mixture until a crumbly/sandy mixture forms. Gather the mixture up into a dough ball, wrap and chill for at least 2 hours.
  • Roll out the dough into a thin disk (about 10inches wide), wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes. Spread red bean paste over the top of the dough and cut it like a pizza into 12 pieces (I like to cut it in half vertically, then horizontally to create 4 pieces, and then cut each piece individually into thirds).
  • Roll up the triangles from the wide part (outside). Place it on a plastic lined plate and repeat with the rest. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before baking.
    Adzuki Red Bean Rugelach
  • Preheat your oven to 350.
  • Transfer your rugelach to a linned baking sheet. Make the eggwash by beating 1 egg together with 1 tsp water. Brush the top of the cookies with it and generously sprinkle with coarse sugar. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

Notes

Rugelach pastry recipe is leveraged from NY Times Cooking.

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