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I have used the same rugelach recipe for years with out a problem. This year however, the dough is pulling apart and shredding when being rolled out and up. There are 2 different things this year, I used a different flour and we have been getting endless amounts of rain, so the humidity has been high. The dough is also very soft. Any ideas?

The recipe for the dough is as follows:

  • 8 ounces cream cheese
  • 1/2 lb butter
  • 1/4 c sugar
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 2 cups flour

-> mix all, refrigerate at least an hour ( I did over night). When I rolled it out onto a floured surface, it fell apart and became almost stringy.

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    Do you measure your flour by volume or by weight? – Jay Dec 8 '15 at 18:06
  • Could you please post the recipe or at least the kind of dough - there are different rugelach doughs on the web. – Stephie♦ Dec 8 '15 at 18:38
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    I have seen brands of flour behave differently, and so I try to stick with the same brand. If a brand disappears and I have to use a new brand, I learn to adjust to it, but the adjustments have always been slight. Some recipes even call for a specific brand and tells you results won't be the same if you use a different brand. – Escoce Dec 8 '15 at 20:05
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    @MatthewRead even between brands of the same type of flour, I have seen practical differences. These are most easily noticeable in moisture sensitive recipes like American biscuits (not British biscuits aka cookies), or pastry dough. – Escoce Dec 8 '15 at 21:20
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    The recipe is as follows: 8 ounces cream cheese, 1/2 lb butter, 1/4 c sugar, 1/4 tsp salt, 1 tsp vanilla, 2 cups flour; that is the contents of the dough, then there are different fillings used.......mix all, refrigerate at least an hour ( i did over night). When I rolled it out onto a floured surface, it fell apart and became almost stringy – Deborah Dykstra Dec 8 '15 at 23:12
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This happens to me when I am in humid climates, worse still hot and humid climates. Moisture condensing out of the air on to the dough is the main cause. In a hot humid climate, taking a chilled dough out of the fridge only makes the condensation problem much worse.

I have tried estimating the amount of added water from condensation, but there are too many variables to make the results workable.

With your recipe, you do not have many degrees of freedom to counter the additional water from condensation. It is not as if you could control the moisture contents of butter and cream cheese. Perhaps you can begin by playing with more flour. Also, counter-intuitively, try not to have such a cold dough to reduce condensation. It is a balancing act in a hot-humid environment, not cold enough, the butter softens too much for a workable dough, colder, you get disproportionately more condensation and the dough becomes stringy.

This is in fact a constant nightmare with recipes when moving from one climate to another and one season to another.

The only rather unhelpful suggestion I have is that you have to keep experimenting with small adjustments and make meticulous notes, including relative humidity, kitchen temperature and dough temperatures at various stages of working.

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Also, as @jay asked, it is best to use weight rather than volume. Did you change measuring cups?

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