Sixth Day of Pumpkin Holiday Cookies, Pumpkin Rugelach

According to Wikipedia, traditional rugelach is made in the form of a crescent by rolling a triangle of dough around a filling, and that rugelach and the French croissant share a common Viennese ancestor, crescent-shaped pastries commemorating the lifting of the Turkish siege in 1793. The word is Yiddish and comes from Eastern Europe.

These pumpkin rugelach are a combination of Lindsey Cona's family recipe for the dough, a pumpkin butter replacing the traditional apricot jam, and toasted pecans. The idea isn't original, others on the Internet have made pumpkin rugelach, but this hobbled together recipe is all mine. I couldn't be happier with the results. The dough is flaky and the filling spicy. They look impressive on a cookie plate and taste as good as they look.

Pumpkin Rugelach
Dough:
1/3 cup sour cream

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup unsalted butter

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese

Cut cold butter and cream cheese into bits. In food processor, pulse ingredients until crumbly. Shape crumbly mixture into four equal balls, wrap each ball in plastic wrap and chill 2 hours or up to 2 days.

Filling:

1 15 oz can pumpkin puree

1/2 cup apple juice

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1 cup sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

pecans, toasted and chopped

Combine ingredients except nuts in saucepan. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Cool.

Assembling cookies:

1.  Flatten each ball into a round disk, keeping other balls chilled until ready to roll them. This dough is sticky, and I flattened mine between two pieces of wax paper sprayed with Pam. I talked to Lindsey about this step and you can use flour too.

2.  Spread disk with pumpkin mixture and then sprinkle with nuts. Press lightly into dough. Use a chef's knife or pizza cutter to cut each round into 12 wedges. I actually cut mine into 14 wedges.

3.  Roll wedges from wide to narrow, ending up with the point on the outside of the cookies. Place on ungreased baking sheets and chill for 20 minutes before baking.

4.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

5.  Bake chilled rugelach on the center rack of your oven for 22 minutes until lightly golden. (Mine took longer even though they were small, so I'd go by color rather than time.)

6.  Cool on wire racks. Store in airtight containers. They freeze well.