the recipe has 1 cup sugar, 1 stick butter, 1/2 cup shortening, 5 cups flour, 3 eggs,1/3 cup orange juice, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 3 tsp baking powder
Let's start with texture and making them more "drop-able." There's a lot of flour in this recipe and not much liquid by compare—which is typical rugelach—the traditional cream cheese version makes for a pretty thick dough. I assume that the consistency of this dough is similar?
If so, then to transform them to drop "cookies" they need more liquid. More orange juice would do strange things to the flavor and up the acidity; probably not a good idea...perhaps cream? Think of them less like drop "cookies" and more like English scones (i.e: a cake-like biscuit) that's "dropped" rather than shaped (note: if you enter "drop scone" into the search engine you'll get a lot of recipes for pancakes. The British refer to "pancakes" as drop scones).
So, add in a tablespoon or two or even three of cream till your cookies look more like a wet biscuit dough that you can drop rather than shape. To assist, take a look at this recipe for English style scones "dropped" rather than shaped:
https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/butterscotch-drop-scones-230911
The recipe above will also give you some idea of any adjustments (or not) you might need to make in regards to the amount of baking power. Also check out this video for "cake-like tenderness" to biscuits and see if it gives you ideas on other ways to modify the rugelach so you can easy drop them, but still get a good texture:
when i did drop cookies in various sizes -- the flavor gets lost
Okay, this is the second problem that needs addressing. Even if we get them to drop, and get them to have a consistency that is acceptable to you, we also have to copy in that cinnamon-sugar-raisins-walnut flavor.
Obviously, you can mix the raisins and walnuts into the dough. To magnify raisin flavor....chop them up and mix with orange juice (to plump them up and enhance flavor)? or try currants instead of raisins (more currants per bite as they are smaller)? As for the cinnamon sugar. you need to double up to taste it. Put it not just inside, but out. So, add a teaspoon of cake spice if you have it, or just cinnamon if you don't to the dough. Then make up the cinnamon sugar. Before baking, sprinkle cinnamon sugar liberally over tops of drop cookies.
I suggest cake spice in the dough rather than just cinnamon because that way the cookies taste of spice, but the cinnamon sugar topping stands out as "cinnamon-y."
Another alternative: keep teaspoon spice in the dough. but
leave out the raisins walnuts from the dough. Mix them up as usual with cinnamon sugar. Either punch your thumb into each drop cookie and add a spoonful of the mix in the middle, OR, drop a little dough, add a dollop of raisin-spice-cinnamon-surgar, then top with more dough. So you end up with a kind of coffee-cake middle to the drop cookies. Either way, sprinkle the tops of these with additional cinnamon sugar.
Last bit of advice: obviously, you're going to have to experiment. Maybe you're doing this...but in case you're not...it would be easier for you to cut this recipe into 1/3rd (meaning, one egg, one tablespoon cream, etc.), to experiment. Less to throw away. Or, better yet, keep the recipe the same, divide into thirds of equal weight, and try a different experiment on each—different amounts of cream (or milk?), raisins/walnuts mixed in or not, etc.
IMPORTANT: you need to understand that altering this recipe so you can drop rather than roll out means an alteration to the texture/flavor...achieving the same flavor, etc. might not be possible in this shape. Focus, instead, on capturing the "spirit" of the original rugeluch.
That, I think, is absolutely do-able.
