Take a little tropical vacation with these unique Rugelach pastries filled with guava jam, shredded coconut and toasted macadamia nuts. Totally non-traditional and totally delicious!
The first time I made these tropical rugelach was many years ago when I got my hand on some guava butter and passion fruit butter during one of our Hawaiian vacations. That particular vacation were also the reason for this macadamia coconut granola, these Hawaiian chocolate chip coffee cookies, and these wanna be Honolulu cookie company chocolate chip macadamia nut shortbread cookies!
I think you will like the easy tender cream cheese rugelach dough; the cute little crescent shape cookies with lots of flavors and textures from the rugelach filling mixture; and all the fun variations you can make with this one rugelach recipe. I made them with just cinnamon sugar, with fig and walnuts, and with almond paste!
Table of Contents
Helpful tools
Here are some of the equipment I like to use when making this tropical rugelach recipe:
- A stand mixer to make the dough.
- A bench scraper to divide the dough into portions quickly. It also helps with scraping and lifting the dough off your surface easily if it happens to stick.
- A rolling pin to roll out the dough.
- And a pizza wheel to simplify cutting, though you can also use a knife.
Ingredients and substitutions
As always, you’ll find the complete list of ingredients and quantities in the recipe card at the end of this post. Below are some notes and substitution tips:
- Cream cheese – full fat brick cream cheese.
- Unsalted butter – I don’t recommend substituting salted butter here since it will make the dough saltier than intended.
- Granulated sugar
- Kosher salt – just a small amount is used in the pastry dough. If you use table salt, use half as much.
- Pure vanilla extract
- All purpose flour
- Guava jam or preserve – you can also use other tropical flavor like mango, pineapple, passion fruit. Bonne Maman makes guava, pineapple-passion fruit and mango-peach preserves. St Dalfour makes mango passion fruit and pineapple mango fruit spreads. You can find both these brands online or at local stores. If you can find guava butter or lilikoi (passion fruit) curd, those are good too.
- Macadamia nuts – use either raw or roasted unsalted macadamia nuts. I think the salted variety will make the rugelach filling too salty.
- Coconut – you can use sweetened or unsweetened shredded coconut. I tested both varieties and it doesn’t really make a difference in flavor. If you use sweetened coconut, that tends to have longer strands so you’ll want to chop it up finely before mixing it in with the rest of the filling ingredients.
- Egg wash – one whole egg beaten with a tablespoon of cream, milk or water.
How to make guava rugelach
The following instructions, step-by-step photos, and tips are here to help you visualize how to make the recipe. You can always skip straight to the printable recipe card at the end of this post.
Make the dough
First, cream together room temperature butter and cream cheese to combine and make sure there is no lump.
Then add sugar, salt and vanilla extract and beat until combined and fluffy.
Sift in the flour and stir until the dough forms. It will not be a super smooth dough but more on the soft side and just slightly wet, somewhere between a cookie dough and pie dough.
Scrape the dough out on a floured surface and pat together into a disk. Keep the dough, surface and your hands floured as needed.
Divided the large disk into 4 equal portions and forms 4 smaller disks. Wrap each one in plastic and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, this will allow the dough to hydrate and make it easier to work with later.
Prepare the filling
Toast macadamia nuts in a skillet over medium heat for 3-5 minutes until lightly brown and nutty. Spread them on a cutting board to cool and then chop really finely. Mix the chopped macadamias with shredded coconut and granulated sugar.
Tip: Chop the shredded coconut finely too if necessary.
Assemble and bake
Take a disk of rugelach dough out of the fridge and roll it into a 9″ circle.
Spread 2 tablespoons of guava jam over the surface of the dough.
Spread a quarters of the macadamia coconut filling on top and press it into the jam to adhere so the filling doesn’t fall out when you roll the cookies up. Some might still fall out but it’s okay.
Cut into 12 and roll them up into crescent shape cookies. Keep assembled cookies on a lined baking sheet in the refrigerator or freezer while you work with the rest of the dough.
When ready to bake, brush the little guava macadamia coconut rugelach with egg wash and sprinkle liberally with a mixture of granulated sugar and shredded coconut. Then bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 18 minutes until the top of the cookies are lightly brown.
More baker’s tips
- Baking time – You may need to adjust bake time depending on your oven temperature. Some of my readers have written in saying that they need to bake a few minutes longer to get the rugelach cookies to brown.
- Kneading the dough – You don’t need to knead the dough excessively. Just run your mixer until the dough comes together, that’s enough. But if you do knead it a little bit longer, it is also okay, this dough is quite forgiving and will stay tender when baked.
- Let the dough sit at room temp before rolling – if your dough has been in the fridge for a while or overnight, it might be too hard to roll straight from the fridge. Just let it sit on the countertop for about 30 minutes to soften, it will be easier to roll.
Storage
These tropical rugelach will keep at room temperature in an airtight container for 3-5 days. You can also keep them refrigerated for up to 2 weeks or freeze them for up to 3 months. Thaw completely before serving.
The rugelach dough, unbaked, can be kept in the refrigerator for up to a week or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
You can also freeze the unbaked assembled cookies for up to 3 months. Bake directly from frozen and increase the baking time a few minutes until the cookies brown to your liking.
Hungry for more?
Guava Rugelach with Coconut and Macadamia
Equipment
- Pizza Wheel
Ingredients
For the Rugelach:
- 8 ounce cream cheese, room temperature, 227 g
- 8 ounce unsalted butter, room temperature, 227 g
- ¼ cup granulated sugar, 47 g
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 cup all-purpose flour, 270 g
- Extra flour for rolling
For the filling:
- ½ cup guava jam
- 1 cup macadamia nut, finely chopped, 140 g
- ¼ cup granulated sugar, 47 g
- ¼ cup shredded coconut , sweetened or unsweetened, finely chopped if necessary, 16 g
Egg wash & topping:
- 1 whole egg
- 1 tablespoon heavy cream, milk or water
- 2 tablespoon granulated sugar, 23 g
- 2 tablespoon shredded coconut , sweetened or unsweetened, finely chopped if necessary, 8 g
Instructions
- Cream 8 oz of room temperature unsalted butter and 8 oz of room temperature cream cheese in a medium mixing bowl with the paddle attachment on medium high speed until combined and creamy.
- Add ¼ cup of granulated sugar, ¼ teaspoon of kosher salt and 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract extract and beat on medium speed until combined and fluffy.
- Sift in 2 cup of all-purpose flour, and stir on low speed until just combined.
- Scrape the dough out onto a lightly floured board, and shape into a disk. Divide into 4 equal portions, shape each into a ball then flatten into a disk and wrap in plastic. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
- Toast 1 cup of macadamia nuts in a skillet over medium heat for 3-5 minutes until lightly brown and nutty. Spread it over a chopping board to cool, and chop finely. Combine the macadamia nuts with ¼ cup of shredded coconut and ¼ cup of granulated sugar in a small bowl, whisk to distribute evenly.
- Remove the dough from the refrigerator and roll out into a 9” circle, working with one disk of dough at a time.
- Spread 2 tablespoons of guava jam over the dough circle, leaving about ¼” from the edge clean.
- Spread a quarter of the filling over the jam and lightly press it down, it should stick to the jam.
- Cut the circle into 12 triangles using a pizza wheel. First cut the circle into quarters, then cut each quarter into thirds.
- Roll the larger end of each triangle in to make a crescent shape cookie, place cookies on a parchment line baking sheet. Keep assembled cookies in the refrigerator or freezer while you repeat the process with the remaining disks of dough.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Beat one egg with a tablespoon of cream or milk (or water) to make egg wash.
- Combine 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar with 2 tablespoon of shredded coconut in a pinch bowl for the topping.
- Brush egg wash all over the cookies, and sprinkle coconut sugar generously over the top.
- Bake for 18 minutes, or longer if needed until cookies are slightly brown. Remove from the oven and let cool completely on a wire rack.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like this recipe? Rate & comment below!This post may contain affiliate links. For more details on how we utilize affiliates, ads, and sponsored content, see our full disclosure policy. Thank you for your continued support, which enables us to keep bringing you delicious recipes, at no extra cost to you.
These look so gorgeous. That swirl is amazing. I’m off to find some guava jam.
Nice! I make mine with Apricot jam filling, and sprinkle finely chopped pecans on top! Very similar recipe tho.
Delish!! You can really make it with anything you want 🙂
This looks like an awesome little snack.
Thanks Ben!