Apple Cinnamon Rugelach with Boiled Cider

Name: Apple Cinnamon Rugelach with Boiled Cider
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 160 min
Ingredients: 2 cups all-purpose flour (divided); 2 tablespoons granulated sugar (divided); ¼ teaspoon kosher salt (divided); 1 cup unsalted butter (cold, divided, see Recipe Notes); 1 cup cream cheese (cold, divided, see Recipe Notes); 4 tablespoons light brown sugar (packed); 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon; ⅛ teaspoon kosher salt; 2 tablespoons boiled apple cider; 1 large egg; 1 tablespoon water; coarse sugar (for sprinkling)

These Apple Cinnamon Rugelach wrap a sweet, warmly spiced boiled apple cider filling in tender, flaky cream cheese pastry. Made with a food processor and easy-to-follow rolling instructions, these little crescent cookies bring plenty of apple flavor to Fall baking and holiday cookie plates!

Apple Cinnamon Rugelach stacked on a white plate in front of an apple and a jar of boiled cider.

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Quick Recipe Summary ✨
Why this recipe works
What are rugelach cookies?
Recipe ingredients
How to make Apple Cinnamon Rugelach
Storage and make-ahead instructions
Rugelach dough mixing methods
Troubleshooting tips
Questions asked and answered
More cookie recipes to try
Recipe
Comments

Quick Recipe Summary ✨

Apple Cinnamon Rugelach: Tender, flaky cream cheese pastry wrapped around a sweet cinnamon-brown sugar filling flavored with concentrated boiled apple cider.

No cooked fruit filling: Boiled cider delivers concentrated apple flavor without chopping or cooking apples. The food processor makes quick work of the dough, with step-by-step instructions to guide you through shaping.

Active Time: 30 minutes • Chill Time: 1 hour 20 minutes • Baking Time: 50 minutes (two 25 minute bakes) • Total Time: 2 hours 40 minutes (mostly hands-off!)

Difficulty Level: ⭐⭐⭐ Medium. The dough is easy to make, with a little patience needed for rolling, filling, and shaping the cookies.

Yield: 32 rugelach cookies • Freezer-friendly: Unbaked cookies up to 6 months • Make-ahead: Dough can be frozen for up to 3 months.

👉 Follow the detailed instructions and troubleshooting tips below to make bakery-quality Apple Cinnamon Rugelach with flaky pastry and delicious apple flavor in every bite!

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Why this recipe works

Rich, flaky pastry: Butter and cream cheese create a tender dough with delicate, flaky layers
Concentrated apple flavor: Boiled cider delivers sweet-tart apple flavor without making the pastry soggy
Warm cinnamon sweetness: Brown sugar and cinnamon complement the apple filling with cozy, caramel-like notes

One of the fun things I get to do is teach baking in person. Whether it's for adults or kids, being able to guide people to make their own delicious creations is very gratifying to me.

This Fall I'm leading a 3-part class for 6th graders, and I wanted to create a cookie recipe to use seasonal ingredients. Apples came to mind first, but I didn't want to require chopping, cooking, or draining apples. Then I thought of boiled apple cider (it's a key ingredient in my Apple Spice Cookies) but I wanted something that is in the Jewish culinary tradition.

Rugelach immediately came to mind, and to give them a seasonal twist, I developed the recipe to use the boiled cider with brown sugar and cinnamon rather than chocolate or a fruit spread. Voila, we have Apple Cinnamon Rugelach!

These cookies are easy to make using a classic cream cheese rugelach dough that comes together quickly in a food processor. They're rich, tender, and flaky, and are perfect to snack on or complete a holiday cookie plate.

If 11-year olds can roll out, fill, and bake rugelach, you can, too!

What are rugelach cookies?

Classic rugelach are a rolled crescent-shaped cookie with a sweet filling traditionally associated with Ashkenazi Jewish baking. The fillings can vary from chocolate or other spreads to fruit jams, with or without nuts.

Rugelach differs from hamantaschen cookies (another Jewish filled cookie, this time triangular shaped). Hamantaschen dough, essentially a sugar cookie dough, is designed to hold its shape and stay sturdy around a filling rather than becoming flaky.

In contrast, rugelach have a rich, tender, pastry-like texture with delicate flaky layers. They're made from a rich cream cheese dough of approximately equal weights of flour, butter, and cream cheese in a 1:1:1 recipe ratio. The dough contains little to no sugar (most of the sweetness comes from the filling), and is soft enough to roll thinly without cracking.

Recipe ingredients

You'll need the following ingredients to make this Apple Cinnamon Rugelach recipe:

Ingredients for Apple Cinnamon Rugelach portioned into glass bowls.

Ingredient Notes

Cream Cheese: Adds richness and flavor to the rugelach dough. Use a full-fat cream cheese for the best texture. When making the dough in a food processor, keep the cream cheese cold until ready to use.

Butter: Like cream cheese, butter adds richness and flavor. And like the cream cheese, keep the butter cold until ready to use.

Boiled Apple Cider: The filling is what differentiates this rugelach from others. In this case, I'm going for a Fall-inspired cookie using boiled apple cider. It's fresh unfiltered apple cider simmered until thick and syrupy, concentrating its sweet-tart apple flavor. Unlike regular cider, a little goes a long way, making it ideal for filling these delicate pastries. You can also use store-bought boiled cider for this recipe.

Brown sugar and cinnamon: These add warm, caramel-like sweetness that complement the concentrated apple flavor. Some of the filling may bubble out during baking, but enough remains inside to give the rugelach their delicious apple-cinnamon flavor.

I use light brown sugar to let the apple flavor shine through - dark brown sugar might overpower the apple with molasses overtones.

Coarse sugar: Adds a bit more sweetness and crunch to the rugelach.

Egg: Unlike with most cookie recipes, the egg isn't used in the dough. Instead it's mixed with a bit of water for an egg wash that's brushed on the rugelach before baking to give a shiny presentation and helps the coarse sugar adhere to the dough.

See the recipe card for a full list of ingredients and measurements.

How to make Apple Cinnamon Rugelach

We're making the dough in 2 batches. This keeps the food processor from becoming overcrowded and helps the ingredients mix evenly.

Step 1: Make the rugelach dough

Whisk together half each of the flour, sugar, and salt (photo 1).

Place half of the cold butter, cream cheese, and the flour mixture in a food processor fitted with the blade attachment.

Pulse 4 to 5 times, then process continuously just until the mixture comes together into a shaggy ball. The result is a soft pastry dough (photo 2).

Collage of a food processor bowl with cream cheese, butter, and the flour mixture before and after pulsing.

Don't over-process the dough

Don't continue processing once the dough comes together. Keeping the butter and cream cheese cold helps maintain a lighter, flakier pastry texture.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface, gently shape it into a 5-inch disk, smoothing the sides as you go, and wrap with plastic wrap (photo 3). Place in the refrigerator to chill.

Repeat the process with the remaining butter, cream cheese, and flour. Chill both dough disks for at least 1 hour.

Collage of forming rulegach dough from the food processor into a disk.

Step 2: Prepare the filling

Combine the brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt (photo 4).

Have some boiled apple cider and a pastry brush ready.

Brown sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a glass bowl.

Step 3: Assemble the rugelach

Working with one chilled disk at a time, roll the dough on a lightly floured surface into a circle slightly larger than 9 inches, about ⅛-inch thick.

Press a 9-inch round cake pan (or a similarly-sized plate) into the dough and use the indentation as a cutting guide to trim the dough into an even circle using a paring knife (photo 5).

Collage of rolled out rugelach dough into a 10-inch circle and pressing a 9-inch cake pan to act as a circle cutting guide.

Use a paring knife to cut the dough into an even circle with a smooth edge (photo 6).

Collage of before and after trimming the rolled-out dough into a circle with even edges.

Use up the trimmings

Don't toss the dough trimmings! Instead, you can gather the scraps from both circles, gently press them together, and either make a few bonus oddly shaped rugelach or sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar and bake them as pastry scraps.

Brush a light coating of boiled apple cider over the dough (about 1 tablespoon), leaving a ¼-inch border around the outer edge. Use a light hand when brushing on the boiled cider - you want the surface lightly coated, not saturated.

Sprinkle half the brown sugar-cinnamon mixture evenly over the boiled cider. Smooth the filling using a small offset spatula (photo 7).

Collage of brushing boiled cider onto the dough disk, then topping with the brown sugar filling.

Using a pizza cutter, cut the circle successively into halves, quarters, eighths, then sixteenths (photo 8). You'll have 16 evenly sized wedges.

Collage of before and after cutting the filling-topped rugelach dough disk into 16 portions.

Starting at the wide outer edge of each wedge, roll the dough toward the pointed end to form a small crescent (photo 9).

Collage of shaping a wedge of rugelach dough into a crescent cookie.

Place the rugelach point-side down on a half sheet baking pan lined with parchment paper and press gently to seal down the point (photo 10).

Place the rugelach in the freezer for at least 20 minutes.

Shaped rugelach on a parchment-lined baking pan before freezing.

Repeat the rolling, filling, cutting, and shaping with the second disk for 32 rugelach total. You can place the second assembled batch on a parchment-lined large cutting board if you don't have the extra half sheet baking pan. Place the second batch in the freezer for at least 20 minutes.

Bake the rugelach on parchment paper

Stay away from using a silicone mat for this recipe. The parchment makes cleanup from caramelized syrup much easier (it absorbs some of the liquid, allowing for better browning on the bottom of the cookie), and you can simply lift it away from the pan.

Using silicone, the syrup tends to pool, so the bottoms don't brown as well and makes a bigger mess to clean.

Step 4: Bake the rugelach

Brush the rugelach with an egg wash (that is, a beaten egg mixed with a tablespoon of water), then sprinkle with coarse sugar.

Place the parchment-lined baking pan on top of a second half sheet baking pan.

Bake at 375˚F for 22 to 25 minutes or until you have golden-brown pastry with set, lightly browned bottoms (photo 11). Repeat baking with the second batch of rugelach.

Some filling may bubble out during baking. That's expected with the boiled cider filling.

Collage of before and after baking rugelach.

Why use 2 baking pans?

The doubled pans insulate the bottoms of the rugelach from the higher oven heat, preventing scorching even if some filling escapes.

Let the rugelach cool on the baking pan for several minutes. The escaped boiled-cider filling will be extremely hot when it first comes from the oven, so let those caramelized bits cool before handling.

Transfer the rugelach (using the parchment paper as a sling) to a wire rack, and allow to cool completely.

Storage and make-ahead instructions

Storage instructions: Baked rugelach can be stored in an airtight container in layers separated by wax paper, for 3 to 5 days.

Make-ahead instructions: The disks of rugelach dough can be frozen, wrapped in plastic and stored in a freezer-safe bag or container, for up to 3 months. Defrost the dough overnight in the refrigerator before proceeding with shaping.

Individual unbaked rugelach can be frozen while remaining on the baking pan, then stored in a freezer-safe container or bag for up to 6 months. Bake them from frozen as directed - there's no need to defrost them first.

Yield Notes

You get 32 delicious Fall-inspired rugelach from this recipe.

Rugelach dough mixing methods

I like the food processor dough-mixing method because it gives you an advantage by keeping everything cold and minimizing handling, which is particularly useful for this extremely high-fat 1:1:1 dough. However, you can use a stand mixer or a hand mixer to make the rugelach dough if you'd like. The mixer distributes the fat very evenly before the flour goes in, resulting in a dough that's very smooth, tender, and uniform - almost bordering on a very rich cookie pastry.

Here's an at-a-glance comparison of the two methods:

	Food processor	Stand mixer
Butter & cream cheese	Cold	Usually softened
Initial action	Cuts fat into flour	Creams fats together
Fat distribution	Starts with discrete pieces	Very evenly dispersed
Finished texture	More pastry-like/flaky potential	Very tender, smooth, uniform
Dough temperature	Stays cooler	Warmer
Ease	Extremely fast	Easy, but takes longer

How to make rugelach dough in a stand mixer

Let the butter and cream cheese soften to room temperature before starting
Beat the butter and cream cheese until smooth
Add the flour mixture and mix on low speed until the dough just comes together
Shape into disks, wrap with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 1 hour before assembling the rugelach

Troubleshooting tips

Here are some issues you might encounter when making Apple Cinnamon Rugelach:

Dough is too sticky to roll: The butter and cream cheese have warmed up. Refrigerate the dough for 15 to 20 minutes until firm but pliable.
Dough cracks when rolling: It's likely too cold. Let it rest at room temperature for a few minutes, then gently press any cracks together.
Rugelach lose their shape: The dough may be too warm or the pointed ends aren't tucked underneath. Chill the shaped cookies before baking and place them point-side down.
Filling leaks during baking: Some bubbling is normal. Use only a thin coating of boiled cider and leave the outer ¼-inch border clear.
Bottoms brown too quickly: Escaped filling can caramelize and scorch. Use parchment paper and stack two baking pans to moderate the bottom heat.
Pastry is dense instead of flaky: Over-processing or allowing the dough to get too warm can affect the texture. Process just until the dough comes together and keep it chilled between steps.

Apple Cinnamon Rugelach stacked on a white plate from overhead.

Questions asked and answered

Here are some questions you might have...

How do you pronounce rugelach?

Like with challah, it's hard to write how to pronounce the word rugelach, but it's roughly pronounced "ROO-guh-lakh." The ending sound doesn't exist in English. The "ch" is the anglicized version for the Hebrew letter "chet" which represents the sound you make when you're trying to clear your throat (like the ending of "Bach"), not the sound starting "cheese."

Can I substitute apple cider for boiled apple cider?

Regular apple cider is too thin to use directly in the filling and won't provide the same concentrated apple flavor. Instead, simmer unfiltered apple cider without preservatives until it's reduced to a thick, syrupy consistency, or use store-bought boiled cider.