homemade, grain free cheese bagelachs
a cheese bagelach is like a danish filled with a sweet cheese, typically found at montreal, jewish bakeries and delis. these ones are both grain free and refined sugar free.
Servings: 5 cheese bagelachs
Ingredients
cheese bagelach filling
- 1 cup dry curd cottage cheese
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 egg yolk
- 1/8 cup honey
cheese bagelach dough
- 1/2 cup + 4 tbsp coconut flour
- 6 tbsp almond flour
- 1/2 cup dry curd cottage cheese
- 2 eggs + 1 egg yolk
- 1/3 cup honey
- 1/3 cup coconut oil, melted or butter, melted
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
egg wash (optional)
- 1 egg
- 2 tbsp water
Instructions
cheese bagelach filling
- using a food processor, or a handheld mixer, mix all your filling ingredients together until well combined. it should be creamy and well mixed, without any lumps of dry curd cottage cheese remaining.
- pour into a bowl and cover, place in the fridge as you prepare your dough in the next steps.
egg wash
- simply whisk the egg and two tbsp of water together in a small bowl and set aside. prepare the egg wash right before you are putting your cheese bagelachs together.
cheese bagelach dough
- in a clean food processor, begin with mixing the dry ingredients together, and then proceed to blend in the wet ingredients until well combined.
- remove dough from the food processor and freeze for a couple of hours or so, until the dough is very cold and firm. i often make the dough and filling a day before and then pop it out of the freezer and fridge the next day, to break down the steps.
- now you're ready to put your cheese bagelachs together! take a baking tray and line it with parchment paper.
- grab a piece of dough and roll out the dough into individual strings, massaging in your hand until it's a long string of dough. then lay it on the baking tray and bend it into an upside down U shape, and flatten it. if pieces break off, simply rub them back together. you want the U-shape to be approx 3.5 inches wide and 3.5 inches long, give or take. (photos on my site)
- once you have the dough flat in a U shape, take your cheese bagelach filling and spoon it onto the dough. you can do as much or as little you'd like, the more you fill the bigger and fuller the cheese bagelach will be.
- once you've placed the filling on the bottom of the dough, you'll need to add the final U shaped piece to the top of the cheese bagelach. breaking off a piece of dough, again massage it between both hands until it forms a long string and then place it atop the cheese filling and flatten into the same U shape. you can pat it down to close the edges of the cheese bagelach or leave it a bit open, it'll work fine either way-- there's usually a bit of cheese that spills out along the edges and it's actually delicious because it gets a little crispy and brown.
- repeat this process until you're out of dough and/or filling (whatever comes first! you may have extra filling, as i usually do - i highly recommend using it to bake inside grain free crepes a la cheese blintzes).
- now, if you've prepared an egg wash (optional), lightly coat each cheese bagelach with it. if you tolerate coconut sugar, it would be nice to dust these with coconut sugar as well (i do not eat it myself, it is not SCD legal).
- bake in the oven at 350 for 30-35 mins until the top is golden brown. serve warm or cold. you can store in the fridge in a sealed container for the week or store in the freezer for longer use.