Rosky's

Rosky (or rohlíky in Czech) are the small, pinched cream cheese pastries that show up on holiday cookie trays from Central and Eastern European kitchens everywhere. The dough is rolled, cut, filled with thick fruit jam, sealed into a little dumpling shape, and baked just until set. A heavy snowfall of powdered sugar lands on top right before serving.

The magic is in the dough, which uses equal parts butter, margarine, and cream cheese. The cream cheese makes it tender and slightly tangy; the fat blend keeps the pastry sturdy enough to hold its filling without going greasy. Don’t try to skip the overnight chill, because warm dough won’t roll cleanly and the cookies spread instead of holding shape.

Apricot is the most traditional filling, but prune (lekvar), poppy seed, or raspberry jam are all classic options. Use a thick, low-moisture filling. Loose jam runs out the seams and burns onto the pan.

The pinch-and-seal step is the fragile point. If the dough doesn’t grip itself, the cookies pop open in the oven. Wet the corners of the dough lightly with water before pinching, and as the recipe wisely says, press any pop-opens back together while still hot from the oven.

Pro Tips

• Roll the dough between sheets of parchment instead of flouring the surface. Less flour means more tender cookies.
• Use a 2-inch round or square cutter. Bigger cookies struggle to fully seal.
• A small offset spatula makes filling and folding much easier than fingers.
• Dust with powdered sugar only after the cookies are completely cool. Hot cookies absorb the sugar into a glaze instead of holding the snowy white coating.

Variations

• Use prune lekvar (cooked-down prune butter) for the most traditional Old World filling.
• Substitute walnut paste (ground walnuts, sugar, honey, milk) for a nutty, holiday-style filling.
• Pipe melted chocolate over the cooled cookies for a fancy bakery-tin upgrade.