Buttery pastry and sweet and nutty filling make these Hungarian pastry crescents melt in your mouth.

The Backstory: These delicious little cookies are very similar to rugelach but their texture is a little more dense. Also, unlike many rugellach recipes, which call for rolling the dough into a circle and cutting it into triangular wedges, pizza style, my late cousin Shirlee Feldberg, preferred to roll this pastry very thin, and cut it into small squares before forming into crescent shapes. Also, please note that this dough needs to chill overnight in the refrigerator before you roll it out. More of the Backstory after the recipe…

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Hungarian Pastry Crescents

These delicious pastries are moist, flaky, and filled with sweet goodness. You can switch out the filling for a different flavored preserve or add nuts if you like--no matter how you personalize them, they will melt in your mouth.

Course Desserts

Cuisine Jewish

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 1 day 30 minutes

Servings 18 cookies

Ingredients

For the Dough

• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening
• 1/2 lb. block of cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1 tsp. Kosher salt
• 2 cups flour

For the Filling

• 1/2 cup chopped nuts
• 3 tbsp. sugar
• 1/2 cup strawberry or raspberry preserves
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Instructions

1. Mix the dough ingredients together thoroughly and refrigerate overnight.
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
3. Roll pastry very thin and cut into 2" squares.
4. Mix filling ingredients together. Put a spoonful of filling in center of square and roll up, curving into shape of a crescent.
5. Bake for 10 minutes at 400 - 425 degrees.

…The Backstory continues: The recipe was originally published in her Sisterhood’s Kosher cookbook from Congregation Shaarey Tfiloh, (Spring Valley, New York). Thank you to my cousin, Lennie Feldberg for permission to re-publish it here.  I’m sure Shirlee would love knowing that her delicious confections live on.

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Jodi Luber

Here goes: Born in Brooklyn. Daughter of a bagel baker with a Henny Youngman soul and a mom who makes Joan Rivers seem tame. Late bloomer. Married the love of my life at 45 and love being a mom to our three kids. I'm a professor at Boston U. Happiest in the kitchen baking and remembering how my dad would melt from a single bite of my cheesecake.

Jodi Luber

Jodi Luber

Jodi Luber

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