Delicious Death Gliders

A foodie post for you.

Over the past couple of days I have been making Rugelach. These are small Jewish sweet pastries filled with dried fruit and cinnamon. Having finished eating the second batch of mince pies I made, I thought I would make these for a change. It is several years since I last made them and I am pleased to say that they are as delicious as I remember!

When I first made them, many years ago, my hubby and I had been watching Stargate SG-1, a sci-fi series we both enjoy, in which the evil aliens fly around in their small fighter planes known as death gliders:

and my hubby came in the kitchen and saw all the Rugelach laid out and said, “They look just like death gliders!” The name has stuck!

They are a lot more of a fiddle to make than mince pies but well worth the effort. On previous occasions I was able to get a luxury dried fruit mix but our local supermarket doesn’t seem to stock this any longer – it may be a seasonal Christmas thing, and I will have to see if I can source it from a more specialist delicatessen or wholefood shop. I did get some “Island Mix” which has a variety of dried fruits in it, and this worked OK, but I don’t think the flavour is quite as intense, and the pieces were a lot harder and more difficult to prepare.

The pastry is made from unsalted butter, self-raising flour and cream cheese, which results in a lovely soft, light result.

It is very pliable and sticky when first made, and needs to be put in the fridge overnight to harden slightly. I made double quantities and wrapped the two portions separately in kitchen foil.

I made them in two batches over a couple of days because of being busy with other things, and also I got pretty tired doing all this!

Here are the filling ingredients ready to mix.

The completed filling.

I remember from previous occasions that if I didn’t cut up the dried fruit, it was much too lumpy to be used. I had used my mini-Moulinex chopper/blender for this, but this new dried fruit was very hard, and became extremely sticky once you started chopping it, and I found the little machine was struggling, and the motor was overheating, so I stopped using it, and cut up the fruit by hand instead, on a board with a large sharp knife. This was pretty hard work and took ages!

The next picture shows the pastry being rolled for the first batch.

Divided into four portions, each of these is rolled out into a disc measuring about 9 inches. My rolling pin is still missing… So out comes the mulled wine bottle again – it makes a very adequate rolling pin!

Each pastry disc is then cut into 8 equal wedges.

The wedges are spread with honey and the filling laid on top.

Finally, they are rolled up and formed into the death glider shape, brushed with egg white and dusted with sugar, ready for the oven.

Baked until golden brown. In total I have made 64.

Deeeelicious! – especially served warm.

My diet? Oh dear… Well, I shall just have to ration myself! They are just toooo yummy.