Chocolate-Coconut Rugelach

unimpressive looking but tasty

dough sprinkled with preserves, coconut and chocolate

my china mixing bowl from England, rarely used

My days off never go quite as planned and today was no different. Day began with Miss W announcing she had lost her glasses – she had put them on her desk but they had somehow mysteriously disappeared. Boy 1 discovered them in his room, everyone left for school . . . but then there was the chaos and laundry from the weekend to deal with. Boy 2 had a hard weekend, frankly I’m surprised the school has not called today complaining that he is agitated. He spent the entire day Sunday trying to place as much stuff as possible behind the washing machine and sticking his hand down the toilet, steam was coming out of my ears by the time he went to bed.

It was with some (well lots, really) trepidation that I set off for the PO this morning after creating some semblance of order in the house. I had my Christmas packages for England in tow which I usually send by surface mail. Well, the PO has considerately decided to abolish surface mail. It cost me $160 to mail 3 packages and none were especially heavy as I always take great care not to buy heavy items to send home. Was almost weeping as I paid.

On to King Soopers, where I bought ingredients for rugelach, apricot preserves (fancy brand was on sale), shredded coconut, cream cheese, butter. I am a useless cook and yesterday my mother advised me to just do something I could stir together in a bowl and drop on a baking sheet, but I felt determined to attempt something fancier. First 2 batches were disastrous – pastry would not do what I needed it to, my own fault I am sure as I didn’t have time to chill it as the recipe required. You had to roll out the dough in a large circle, then spread it with preserves, sprinkle with coconut and add some choc chips. Then you divide it like a pizza and roll each wedge up going from the wide side, you end up with a little crescent. The recipe book (Woman’s Day Christmas Cookies Candies and Cakes) show really tasty looking golden cookies sprinkled with coarse sugar (which I couldn’t find in King Soopers). The reality, my rugelach, are wonky, untidy things. I don’t generally believe in using the words ‘less’ and ‘chocolate’ in the same sentence, but I think the less chocolatey ones are nicer. The last two batches of rugelach are much better, and they do taste quite good – not as good as I had hoped, but Boy 1 will eat these. Actually (I’ve just sampled another one) they are quite good, quite morish, pastry is lovely. If only they looked a bit more impressive.