Rugelach. Lekvar, What?

OK, for all you fine people out there who have no idea what lekvar is, join the club! From Merriam-Webster, "it's a prune butter used as a pastry filling (origin Hungarian)." Now you know. Baking with Julia called for prune or apricot and even gave us the recipe and option for making the lekvar ourselves. Let's just say, I am not that ambitious, as the Rugelach itself turns out to be pretty time consuming. One other thing about lekvar, if you look for it in your grocery store in the jam section, good luck. I tried several markets and could find no such thing. I went with the fancy, French apricot spread.

For my first attempt, I used walnuts, almonds and pistachios for the mixed nuts, and medjool dates and cherries for the dried fruit. I made the pastry yesterday and I only got as far as making the jelly-roll today. Looking forward to baking them tomorrow!

Here's the condensed version of how to make Rugelach. Layer butter/cream cheese pastry, apricot lekvar, cinnamon-sugar, mixed nuts, dried fruit and roll. After chilling the rolls, cut them into pieces, roll them in cinnamon-sugar-nut mixture and bake. Yes, it takes some time. I'm finding out that baking teaches you patience which is not my strong suit but getting stronger with every recipe.

Chocolate Truffle Tartlets. OMG!

Seriously tasty treats here. I missed the required Tuesday, February 21, because I was hanging out on a beach in Maui (so sad), but I did make the tartlets the following day. Glad I chose not to skip entirely, as they did not disappoint! The Chocolate Dough was a pain, but I survived it (might of cheated and added extra water to get it to hold together). My favorite line in the recipe was "beat the yolks and sugar until the yolks thicken and form a slowly dissolving ribbon..." I'm sorry, but it seems to me that ribbons are for packages or hair, certainly not for yolks. Not sure my yolks were ribbon-esque, but I must of done something right since the filling was exceedingly yummy.