Poppy Seed Rugelach – Рогалики с Маком

These pretty rugelach pastries are formed in a crescent shape by rolling a triangular shape of dough around a sweet, creamy and slightly crunchy poppy seed filling. These are a family favorite all year long, but especially around the holidays. I use a cream cheese dough and a poppy seed filling for this version of rugelachs. The cream cheese dough makes these pastries unbelievably soft and tender. The dough is so easy to work with and it can be made in advance and kept in the refrigerator for a few days or frozen for months. This makes it so convenient.

In Russia, these pastries are also known as гости на пороге, or guests at the doorstep. In other words, if unexpected guests arrive, you can quickly get this dessert in the oven. The dough needs to be refrigerated before you can start shaping them, so it makes perfect sense to make it in advance and have it on hand. The poppy seed filling is our favorite, and you can make the homemade version (there’s a link to the recipe that I use – which also freezes perfectly), or you can use store bought filling. The wonderful thing about these cookies is that the filling options are endless – jam, ground nuts or raisins or other dry fruit, cream cheese, cinnamon, apples, melted chocolate or Nutella. 

Yields: 70-80 rugelach cookies

Ingredients:

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

3/4 cup butter, softened

1 egg yolk

2 Tablespoons water

2 cups all purpose flour

Poppy seed filling (there is enough filling in this recipe for 2 batches of rugelach)

powdered sugar, for dusting the pastries

Instructions:

In the standing mixer with a paddle attachment or using a hand mixer, cream the cream cheese and butter until they are an even consistency. Add the egg yolk and water, mix until incorporated.
Add the flour and also mix until incorporated.
Wrap in aluminum foil or parchment paper and refrigerate until firm, at least a few hours. You won’t be able to roll out the dough if it’s not firm enough.  I usually make a few batches of this dough and keep the extra in the freezer. Next time I feel like having these pastries, I have dough ready to go. Here’s where the guests at the doorstep aspect comes in:).
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

To shape the pastries, here’s what I usually do. On a floured surface, roll out a portion of the dough and cut out a circle.
I used a 10 inch lid. You can use a dinner plate or anything else round.  Save the scraps and put them in the refrigerator or freezer to firm up again. Place about 2 tablespoons of the poppy seed filling and spread it all over the surface of the dough. If your poppy seed filling is hard to spread and clumpy, add a few teaspoons of boiling water to it and mix to combine. This will make it smooth and spreadable.
Cut the circle into 8 triangles. I like having bigger and smaller rugelach cookies, so part of the dough I cut into 8 triangles and the other part I cut into 12-16 pieces, so that way we have smaller cookies too. The size is completely up to you.

Roll up each triangle, starting from the widest part, into a crescent shape.  Place the Rugelach cookies on prepared baking sheets, tip side down. 
Bake for 12-18 minutes, until starting to brown on the tips. The pastries will still be white. Do not bake them until they are golden all over, they will be overcooked and hard.

If you like your cookies to be brown, you can use the egg white that you didn’t use for the dough, whisk it up and brush it on the pastries before baking. You can also sprinkle some sugar over the egg wash, since these pastries aren’t very sweet. I prefer to dust with powdered sugar. Repeat will the rest of the dough. Use the scraps too, but make sure to refrigerate until firm first, or they won’t roll out very well. You can use whatever filling you like for these pastries, cinnamon, cream cheese, jam, preserves or nuts.

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Poppy Seed Rugelach – Рогалики с Маком

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  • Author: Olga's Flavor Factory
  • Prep Time: 1 hour 30 mins
  • Cook Time: 18 mins
  • Total Time: 1 hour 48 mins
  • Yield: 70-80 rugelach 1x
  • Category: Sweets

Ingredients

Scale
  • 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
  • 3/4 cup butter, softened
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 2 Tablespoons of water
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • Poppy seed filling
  • powdered sugar, for dusting the pastries

Instructions

  1. In the standing mixer with a paddle attachment or using a hand mixer, cream the cream cheese and butter until they are an even consistency.
  2. Add the egg yolk and water, mix until incorporated.
  3. Add the flour and also mix until incorporated.
  4. Wrap in aluminum foil or parchment paper and refrigerate until firm, at least a few hours. You won’t be able to roll out the dough if it’s not firm enough.
  5. I usually make a few batches of this dough and keep the extra in the freezer. Next time I feel like having these pastries, I have dough ready to go. Here’s where the guests at the doorstep aspect comes in:).
  6. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  7. To shape the pastries, here’s what I usually do. On a floured surface, roll out a portion of the dough and cut out a circle. I used a 10 inch lid. You can use a dinner plate or anything else round. Save the scraps and put them in the refrigerator or freezer to firm up again.
  8. Place about 2 tablespoons of the poppy seed filling and spread it all over the surface of the dough. If your poppy seed filling is hard to spread and clumpy, add a few teaspoons of hot water to it.
  9. Cut the circle into 8 triangles.
  10. Roll up each triangle, starting from the widest part, into a crescent shape.
  11. Place on the prepared baking sheets.
  12. Bake for 12-18 minutes, until starting to brown on the tips. The pastries will still be white. Do not bake them until they are golden all over, they will be overcooked and hard.
  13. If you like your cookies to be brown, you can use the egg white that you didn’t use for the dough, whisk it up and brush it on the pastries before baking. You can also sprinkle some sugar over the egg wash, since these pastries aren’t very sweet. I prefer to dust with powdered sugar. Repeat will the rest of the dough.
  14. Use the scraps too, but make sure to refrigerate until firm first, or they won’t roll out very well.
  15. You can use whatever filling you like for these pastries, cinnamon, cream cheese, jam, preserves or nuts.

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87 Comments

  • Natasha

    I’ve looking for a good simple rugelachs recipe for a long time! I think this will do just great! Looks very delicious!!! Thank you!

  • Alla Sherstyukov

    Making them now. Didnt have any poppyseed filling (Also, anything else I can grind poppyseed with if I don’t have a coffee grinder?) I am making mine some with cream cheese/sugar and some with raspberry jam 🙂 Thank you Olga!

  • tanya

    i just made them. they are delicious. and i love that i could make the dough yesterday night and have it all ready to use today. will def make them again soon:))

    • Olga K.

      That’s one of my favorite things about them. Around the holidays I make the dough and freeze it. Any time I have a little bit of free time, the dough is ready for action. I love the texture of this dough too. I’m so glad you liked them too:).

    • olgak7

      Olga G,
      It’s not an advantage or disadvantage; it’s just a different type of dough. Each one is distinctly different and delicious in it’s own way.

  • Anna

    Love this recipe… I made a double batch like you and left it in the freezer for when I want some.
    I love how easy this is and delicious to taste!

    happymedley.blogspot.com

    • olgak7

      Super, Anna! From all the different cookies and pastries that I make, this is probably one of my favorites too. Thanks for taking the time to write:).

  • Angie

    Hi, I’m not a baker at all and would love to try this!!!
    When you say to use cream cheese is there a specific type? Like the Philadelphia cream cheese or something specific ?

    I was also looking at other desserts and the ingredient was heavy whip cream or something where do I buy these creams to make the frosting? I’m clueless when it comes to baking sorry

    • olgak7

      Hi Angie! You can use any kind of cream cheese that is sold in the store. I prefer using the full fat, not the light cream cheese. Philadelphia cream cheese is great.
      The heavy cream is sold in the dairy section of the store near the milk. It’s labeled heavy cream or heavy whipping cream.

    • olgak7

      Since the filling is sweet and they are covered in powdered sugar later, these little cookies are absolutely sweet enough, Natasha! In my opinion, anyway. If you like your baked goodies really sweet, you can add more sugar to the filling or even add some to the dough. We’ve been making these for years in our family, and everyone always raves about them, so I would guess that the sweetness is enough to please almost any tasters.

  • Ella

    Hello Olga,
    Not quite sure if I changed anything in the recipe when I was making these, but they took me about a half hour to bake fully. Have you had that before?

    • olgak7

      Hi Ella.
      Since the dough is made from cream cheese, the finished cookies will not be as brown as the typical rugelach that Russians make. They do appear kind of white. Some people have told me that I didn’t bake it enough, but when they ate it they were surprised at how tender the cookies were. And done, too:).
      However, if you want the cookies to be more brown, just bake them longer. They will be a little crisper around the edges.
      It also depends on how thin you rolled out the dough and how big or small you rolled out the circle, which would effect the size of the cookies.
      They will taste great either way though.

  • Sasha

    Olga! I tried making these and had a couple of issues. First, straight out of the fridge, the dough was crumbly and very hard to roll out. I waited for it to soften, which made rolling out easier, but then when it was time to roll the triangles, it was too soft and stuck to the surface (I did flour it prior). So they ended up being messy globs:( I loved the tasted and the texture though!! Any advice?.. Thank you!

    • olgak7

      Hi Sasha!
      I’m sorry to hear that you had trouble with these rugelachs.
      The dough needs to be chilled or it will be too soft to roll it out, as you’ve already found out. I keep most of the dough in the refrigerator while I’m working with a small portion of it at a time. You will need to soften the dough for a short time, 5 minutes or so, it depends on how warm it is in your kitchen. The dough will be really easy to roll out if it’s chilled but slightly warmed at room temperature. Hope that helps.

  • Lily

    How long can I leave this in the fridge for? Would it be ok for like 2 days? Or would I have to freeze it? And those it take long to thaw?

    • olgak7

      Do you mean the cookie dough, Lily? You can leave it in the refrigerator for a few days. If you mean the actual baked cookies, then you don’t have to store them in the fridge, room temperature is best.

  • Olga

    I am in the process of making them, but I do have a question is foil essential in this case? can I just put it into a bowl or other container? I placed my dough in the freezer and now it’s all frozen so I have to wait until it defrosts.

    As for the filling I hope any of it will survive after my boys “sampling” 🙂 Thank you 🙂

  • Tony

    Hi Olga: I made the poppy seed filling yesterday,I was not sure if I was really going to like it. Today I made your recipe for poppy seed Rugelachs. Let me tell you, I just though they were great. I had them with a cup of tea and they were not too overly sweet just right. Thanks for the recipe. Will make again. I had extra filling left so I put it in the freezer. It should keep, I don’t see why not.

  • Laura

    My mom detests the flavor of cheese in any way and even isn’t a big fan of cream cheese. Do these have a strong cream cheese flavor? I had some sort of poppy seed pastry with a polish friend once and LOVED IT and am hoping my family will love it, too. I’ll just need to warn my mom ahead of time.

    Thanks!

    • olgak7

      Hi Laura!
      No, these pastries do not taste like cheese AT ALL. Since the cream cheese is in the dough, you won’t detect the taste at all. It does make the dough very tender, which I love. If you would use cream cheese as a filling, then you would be able to taste the cheese.

  • Dorina

    Just got these out of the oven. Absolutely delicious! Brought on so many childhood memories. Exercised my arm muscles quite a bit, too, while rolling out the cold dough. 🙂 Next time I’ll use white flour, not wholewheat (that’s what I had to hand) – that should make them even more tender. Way to go, Olga! My mom makes the rugelachs with rose petal preserve that she herself prepares every May – the rugelachs come out soooo fragrant! It’s traditional in their neck of the woods in Moldova, but where do I find that type of rose petals in Canada… Still, poppy seeds are just as good, if not better! 🙂

  • Nadia

    I just made these. They turned out delicious! Thanks for the recipe. The only thing was that the dough was hard to work with. It was very sticky when I tried to roll it out thin. I was rolling it out straight from refrigerator after it sat there overnight. I even tried freezing it. Did you use a lot of flour when rolling out the dough? Another thing is that this recipe yielded only 32 pieces but the recipe says it yields 70-80. Do you really get that many out of just one batch? Just curious cause I rolled out the dough pretty thin but only got that many.

    • olgak7

      Hi Nadia,
      Yes, I use quite a bit of flour when rolling the dough out. I also make the cookies really small, so that’s why I get so many. If you make them larger, you will only get half as much.

  • Andrea

    Hi Olga

    Your cookies look so beautiful! I would like to try to make these Poppyseed rugelachs this weekend–I have one question though: In the instructions you say to roll out a portion of the dough. Could you approximate, or give an exact weight in grams or ounces, what a portion would be?

    I’d like to get as many cookies as you did, so I imagine if I use bigger portions I might run out of dough…
    Thanks in advance!

    • olgak7

      I really don’t remember, Andrea. I never divide them into a certain number of portions, just kind of eyeball it. It doesn’t really matter, as long as you roll them out thin enough. You’ll get the hang of it once you start making them, and figure out how big of portion you need. I will try to count next time I make these cookies.

  • Priscilla

    I’ve been searching all over for a recipe for, “poppyseed butterhorns” that a old family friend use to make. These look just like them 🙂 I can’t wait to make these to see if they taste like hers. Only one question, do you use salted or nosalt butter or does it matter? Thanks

  • Julie

    Omg.. Bohemian fruit slices!! I have been trying to re-create my grandmother’s recipe, to no avail. I just discovered your blog and Boy! Am I excited! This will be the first recipe I try, followed by all the others! Bless you and your family!

  • Olga Y

    I just made these, they are wonderful! I made half with poppyseed filling and half with apricot preserves and walnuts inside. Both taste great but I really wanted to thank you for the dough recipe – it’s definitely a keeper!

  • Lena

    Olga,
    I followed your recipe exactly but my dough turned out wet on the inside after baking for 18 minutes. Can you tell me why?

  • Natasha

    Hi Olga,
    This cookie dough has been sitting in my freezer over a month, can I still use it! Is it safe? I froze it right after making it.

  • Ana

    Olga these are delicious! I don’t remember how many times I have made these. My kids love your rugelachs. I have the dough in the freezer, how should I thow it? Thank you!

    • olgak7

      That’s so awesome, Ana! So happy to hear that you are enjoying the cookies.
      To thaw the dough, I usually take it out of the freezer and leave it overnight in the refrigerator. You can thaw it on the counter if you want to thaw it faster.

  • Barbara K Henderson

    Thank you for this recipe. I have been looking for my grandma’s poppyseed horn recipe. I knew it was not a cookie only dough and not a pie only dough but I could not figure out what kind of dough it was. This is it! Thank you.

  • Ana

    I make this with your Almond paste recipe. They are soft and so delicious! We love it! Thank you for sharing with us your wonderful recipes.! 💐

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