Holiday Baking with the Dame

It's the holidays, and that means special treats from the kitchen! But with so many other holiday chores to attend to - shopping, wrapping presents, parade grand marshalling, holiday wine tasting - how does one find the time to make these tasty goodies?

Here's a recipe for a quick, delicious treat that uses things you might already have laying about your refrigerator!

Lazy Rugelach

You'll need

Pie crust (store-bought, rolled up, chilled - NOT frozen))
1 cup-ish Filling of your choice*
3 tblsp-ish melted butter
1/2 cup-ish finely chopped nuts (any kind)

chopped nuts, for sprinkling
sugar, for sprinkling

*Filling can be any kind of fruit preserves. Thicker jams work ok. Nutella is awesome.

Directions

In a bowl, mix your choice of filling and nuts together. Spread out the crust into it's circle, and smear the filling mix so it covers the circle. With a pizza cutter, cut the circle like a pizza... until you have from 12 to 16 wedges. Starting from the long end of a wedge, roll towards the center. Don't worry - it'll get gloppy towards the end. Place rolled up pastries on a baking sheet about 2 inches apart.

Chill filled baking sheet in the fridge for 30 minutes. You don't have to do this, but chilling them makes the pastry flakier. If you don't chill them, they'll still be good - they will just have a little difference in texture..

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Brush melted butter on tops of each pastry. Lightly sprinkle sugar, and nuts on tops of pastries. I've also sprinkled other spices such as cinnamon on some of my batches.

Bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes.

Remove from pan immediately! I do mean immediately... they'll stick if they cool on the pan!

Let the pastries cool some before eating, as filling will be hot.

If you're making multiple batches, keep the waiting pastries in the fridge until ready to pop into the oven.

Your guests will be awed and amazed, when they show up at your doorstep in their pajamas, hankering for some fresh baked treats!

...that is, if you have any left!

Peach preserves on the left, Nutella on the right... mmmmm!

(To keep my already long story posts from being painfully longer, credit details are in the comment section below, or you can find credits to specific pictures on my Flickr Page! A directory of SLurls can be found here!)