Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 6-quart casserole dish with butter. Place apricots in small bowl, covering them with hot water.
Cook pasta: Drop pasta into large pot of boiling, salted water. Cook for 9 minutes then strain.
Make custard: Place milk, cream, cottage cheese, sour cream, eggs, cream cheese, and melted butter into a medium bowl. Whisk to combine, using a spatula to press and incorporate cream cheese, if necessary. Into that mix, add sugar, vanilla, almond extract, cinnamon and salt. Whisk together until well combined.
Assemble: Strain apricots, blotting them on paper towel, then chop them. Add cooked pasta to custard mixture followed by raisins and chopped apricots. Toss gently to combine, then transfer noodle mixture into prepared pan.
Glaze topping: Melt butter and jam in a small saucepan over moderate heat. Sprinkle in cinnamon and whisk to combine.
Sprinkle sliced almonds over top of kugel. Spill glaze over top of kugel using a pastry brush to dab over surface. Sprinkle with sugar. Transfer baking dish to a foil-lined baking sheet and cover dish loosely with foil.
Bake: Transfer to oven and bake for 30 minutes, then remove foil and continue to bake for 15 minutes or until the top is lightly browned and the centre of the kugel is firm.
Remove from oven leaving to rest for 10 minutes. May also be completely cooled and served chilled or cold.
Sweet Noodle Kugel Recipe
Ingredients
For the kugel:
½ pound egg noodles, 500g
1 cup whole milk
1 cup 35% cream
1 cup cottage cheese
1 cup sour cream
4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
4 tablespoons butter, melted
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup apricots, chopped
1 cup golden raisins
For the glaze:
¼ cup apricot jam
4 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon
For the topping:
1 cup sliced almonds
sprinkle granulated sugar
Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 6-quart casserole dish with butter. Place apricots in small bowl, covering them with hot water.
Cook pasta: Drop pasta into large pot of boiling, salted water. Cook for 9 minutes then strain.
Make custard: Place milk, cream, cottage cheese, sour cream, eggs, cream cheese, and melted butter into a medium bowl. Whisk to combine, using a spatula to press and incorporate cream cheese, if necessary. Into that mix, add sugar, vanilla, almond extract, cinnamon and salt. Whisk together until well combined.
Assemble: Strain apricots, blotting them on paper towel, then chop them. Add cooked pasta to custard mixture followed by raisins and chopped apricots. Toss gently to combine, then transfer noodle mixture into prepared pan.
Glaze topping: Melt butter and jam in a small saucepan over moderate heat. Sprinkle in cinnamon and whisk to combine.
Sprinkle sliced almonds over top of kugel. Spill glaze over top of kugel using a pastry brush to dab over surface. Sprinkle with sugar. Transfer baking dish to a foil-lined baking sheet and cover dish loosely with foil.
Bake: Transfer to oven and bake for 30 minutes, then remove foil and continue to bake for 15 minutes or until the top is lightly browned and the centre of the kugel is firm.
Remove from oven leaving to rest for 10 minutes. May also be completely cooled and served chilled or cold.
Sweet Noodle Kugel Recipe
5 / 5. 1
Egg noodles tossed in a sweetened cheese-and-egg custard, dotted with apricots and raisins, and topped with an apricot-almond crust…
Use your noodle and try our SWEET NOODLE KUGEL RECIPE!
Back in the day, my food-loving Aunt Alexandra made a simplified version of this dish. In my mind, it always seemed like a brilliant way to put leftover noodles to good use. Before I share a few details about making this noodle pudding, we better show this concoction some respect and start calling it by its correct name. Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to a KUGEL.
Props to WIKI who nailed the description: KUGEL is a baked casserole, most commonly made from egg noodles or potato. Often served for Jewish holidays like Rosh Hashanah (New Year) and Shabbat (Friday night dinner), kugel is also served for special occasions like Thanksgiving.
Perhaps we saved the most interesting fun fact about a SWEET NOODLE KUGEL til the end. Even though kugel is a sweetened custard and noodle bake, it’s often served as a side dish with a savoury main. Can you imagine serving this with matzo ball soup, brisket, and latkes covered in onions? Mmm, if you love a sweet-and-salty combo, this recipe is for you.
But wait, there’s more. Kugel can be enjoyed warm or cold, as an entrée, side dish, or dessert. Hopefully, all those tidbits of information have everyone excited to make this wonderfully flavourful dish.
Here are a few tips on making our SWEET NOODLE KUGEL RECIPE:
EGG NOODLES
As mentioned above, kugel is made with egg noodles. You’ll be able to find them at your local grocer or speciality food store. We used a tagliatelle all’uovo from Felicetti’s Monograno line and loved the results. This pasta cooked perfectly following the directions on the package. These wide egg noodles are also flavourful and kept their taste and texture even after being boiled and baked.
Preparing the pasta for this kugel recipe is easy. Simply add the noodles into a large pot of boiling salted water and cook for 9 minutes for al dente. We used an entire 500g box of egg noodles for this recipe.
Once the noodles were cooked, we drained and set them aside and moved on to the custard.
CREAMY CUSTARD
We better be clear from the get-go: this recipe contains dairy, and lots of it. For best results, stay away from low-fat or reduced-fat options. During the testing of this recipe we found using full-fat cottage cheese, sour cream and cream cheese, plus large eggs, whole milk and 35% cream yielded something so rich and wonderful, even we were surprised.
Mixing up the custard need not be a big ordeal but it does require a big bowl. Once all of the ingredients have been added to the large bowl, whisk or stir to combine. If anything, stir more than less. The goal is to dissolve the sugar in with the creams, cheese and eggs. You may also need to work the cream cheese against the side of the bowl. Mix well. One lovely thing to note here is the aroma of the vanilla extract partnered with the almond extract. Lovely.
DRIED FRUIT
In planning this post, we talked it up with friends.“What goes into a kugel?” Well, we learned that dried fruit is often added. Now although raisins seemed most appropriate, you know us, we just had to build that flavour profile. We went with yellow raisins because they’re sweeter than their darker cousins and also have more vitamin C. We also added dried apricots to the kugel recipe. Apricots get top marks for nutrition being high in vitamin A, vitamin C, fibre and potassium. The same flavour also popped up in our glorious almond and apricot glaze atop this noodle dish. More about that next.
GLAZE
Back to that chat with friends. One asked, “Are you making a cornflake crust or are you making a crumble topping?” We thought, umm… neither? Instead, how about this: butter melted with apricot jam and a sprinkle of cinnamon, about 1 teaspoon. This stellar combination of spiced, tangy fruit takes the flavour of kugel from simple to amazing. Spice note: some folks add a sprinkle of nutmeg into the mix. Feel free to try that too.
CASSEROLE DISH
In the above photo, you’ll see two casserole dishes. The glass dish is a standard 9 x 13-inch. The red crock is slightly smaller but deeper. In a pinch, you can also use a coated metal pan. Whichever you use, make sure it’s oven-safe, then simply grease it with butter or cooking spray before adding the noodle mixture. Pro tip: pour mixture slowly, it’s sloshy.
ASSEMBLING A KUGEL RECIPE
Assembling this SWEET NOODLE KUGEL RECIPE is easy work. Simply stir up the custard and add the cooked pasta and dried fruit. Stirring everything together gently is actually quite easy since the custard is so creamy and silky. Just make sure you stir to distribute everything evenly. Fingers crossed everyone gets a little bit of apricot or golden raisin in every bite.
Once everything is mixed, spill the noodle and custard mixture into the prepared baking dish. You may need to move the noodles about in the dish so they’re evenly distributed.
MAKING THE GLAZE
Talk about simple, check out this easy glaze. We suggest making it at the very outset of this recipe. The melted butter, jam and cinnamon mix will do fine resting on stovetop until you’re ready to add it over top.
Before adding the glaze, we first sprinkle the top of the kugel with sliced almonds. This lovely enhancement pairs amazingly well with the almond extract in the custard. Once the almonds have been added, spoon or drizzle the apricot glaze onto the dish, dabbing it across the surface with a pastry brush. Final little sparkle comes from a sprinkle of granulated sugar. Sweet!
BAKE
We sometimes put casseroles, pies and even cakes on a foil-lined baking sheet before sending them to the oven in case the dish bubbles up and overflows. Although we used a foil-lined baking sheet in this recipe, it’s really just a better-safe-than-sorry moment. The one key step in baking the kugel is to loosely cover it with foil. After baking for 30 minutes, we remove the aluminium foil for the final 15 minutes of baking to crisp the top up.
SERVE
Decisions, decisions. Do you serve kugel warm or cold? Do you partner it with savoury sides, a main course, or enjoy it as an early-day sweet treat? It’s entirely up to you.
Now let’s say you have leftovers, we suggest transferring them to a storage or airtight container and keeping them in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Kugel can also be kept in the freezer until you defrost, warm and enjoy all over again.
Our vote: we LOVE enjoying this kugel still warm enough that the custard and noodles can softly twirl around a fork or spoon – sublime.
Speaking of sublime, we have other treats that may be of interest. After trying your hand at Kugel, why not pop back for a visit and try our heavenly STICKY TOFFEE PUDDING, our sensational BLACK FOREST TRIFLE or our seriously wonderful CRANBERRY COBBLER served with a Grand Mariner sauce. Yum!
THE SPICE IS RIGHT!
Just in time for all your cooking needs, our three SPICE BLEND GIFT SETS are now available in Canada on Amazon.ca!
VEGGIE LOVERS (2-pack) – A packet of our POTATO & VEGGIE SEASONING plus a package of our GARLICKY SUN-DRIED TOMATO DIP; just add mayo and sour cream and you’ve got a delicious party dip. Go HERE to order.
MEAT LOVERS (2-pack) – A packet of POULTRY & PORK RUB plus a package of our BUTCHER’S BLEND. Go HERE to order.
WEEKEND ESSENTIALS: The whole shebang, 1 packet of everything! A packet of POULTRY & PORK RUB, BUTCHER’S BLEND, POTATO & VEGGIE SEASONING and a GARLICKY SUN-DRIED TOMATO DIP. Go HERE to order.
This sweet idea is so tasty, we suggest you PIN the recipe to a favourite breakfast, brunch or sweet board on PINTEREST or BOOKMARK this tab for easy access. SHARE it with friends so they can make them too. We’d also appreciate seeing pics of all the delicious dishes you’re making these days. Use #weekendatthecottage when you post those pics on Facebook and Instagram. Thanks!
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Ingredients
For the kugel:
½ pound egg noodles, 500g
1 cup whole milk
1 cup 35% cream
1 cup cottage cheese
1 cup sour cream
4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
4 tablespoons butter, melted
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup apricots, chopped
1 cup golden raisins
For the glaze:
¼ cup apricot jam
4 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon
For the topping:
1 cup sliced almonds
sprinkle granulated sugar
Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 6-quart casserole dish with butter. Place apricots in small bowl, covering them with hot water.
Cook pasta: Drop pasta into large pot of boiling, salted water. Cook for 9 minutes then strain.
Make custard: Place milk, cream, cottage cheese, sour cream, eggs, cream cheese, and melted butter into a medium bowl. Whisk to combine, using a spatula to press and incorporate cream cheese, if necessary. Into that mix, add sugar, vanilla, almond extract, cinnamon and salt. Whisk together until well combined.
Assemble: Strain apricots, blotting them on paper towel, then chop them. Add cooked pasta to custard mixture followed by raisins and chopped apricots. Toss gently to combine, then transfer noodle mixture into prepared pan.
Glaze topping: Melt butter and jam in a small saucepan over moderate heat. Sprinkle in cinnamon and whisk to combine.
Sprinkle sliced almonds over top of kugel. Spill glaze over top of kugel using a pastry brush to dab over surface. Sprinkle with sugar. Transfer baking dish to a foil-lined baking sheet and cover dish loosely with foil.
Bake: Transfer to oven and bake for 30 minutes, then remove foil and continue to bake for 15 minutes or until the top is lightly browned and the centre of the kugel is firm.
Remove from oven leaving to rest for 10 minutes. May also be completely cooled and served chilled or cold.
Until Cottage Season
