Name: Not-Quite-Bonnie's Rugelach with Quince, Walnuts, and Cinnamon
Yield: Makes 24
Ingredients: 1 1/4 cups (160 g) all-purpose flour; 1/8 tsp salt; 1/4 tsp baking powder; Finely grated zest of 1 small lemon (3/4 tsp); Scraped seeds of 1/4 vanilla pod; 1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp (125 g) unsalted butter, fridge-cold, cut roughly into 1-inch/3-cm cubes; 4 1/2 oz (125 g) cream cheese, fridge-cold; 1/3 cup (40 g) walnut halves; 1/2 packed cup plus 1 tbsp (100 g) light brown sugar; 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon; 5 1/4 oz (150 g) store-bought quince paste (membrillo); 1 tsp lemon juice; 1 large egg, lightly beaten; 1/2 tbsp demerara sugar

Rugelach lined up in three rows of three on a parchmentlined baking sheet.

Photo by Peden + Munk

Bonnie Stern, aka Yotam and Sami’s Canadian mother, has been looking after “her boys” since they started doing book tours in Canada. As well as being told which restaurants they need to try, Sami and Yotam have come to expect a bag of Bonnie’s exceptional rugelach. This riff on those famed pastries is filled with quince paste, walnuts, and demerara sugar. They're simple, brittle, and perfectly buttery.

Note

It's the substitution of apricot jam with membrillo (quince paste) in our version that makes these Not-Quite-Bonnie’s, as well as the addition of the baking powder in the dough, which makes the pastry flakier. Apricot jam still works well, though (and is more widely available than membrillo), so feel free to use the jam, if you like. We've fallen for a number of rugelach over the years, from the yeasted varieties so popular in Israel to this flakier version, preferred in North America. The yeasted variety behaves more like bread and doesn't keep as well as the flaky kind. The addition of the baking powder here—and the fact that the dough is made in a food processor with a metal blade, rather than beaten in an electric mixer—makes the pastry light and flaky. The presence of the cream cheese also makes it a dream to roll.