Homemade Hamentaschen

The best part of Purim, aside from the costumes and noise makers, is eating hamentaschen. Hamentaschen are triangle shaped cookies with fruit or chocolate filling. They are in the shape of a triangle because Haman (the villain of the Purim story) wore a triangle shaped hat. Traditionally people eat poppy seed hamentaschen, but many also use other types of fruit and candy filling.

In preparation for Purim, Josh and I thought it would be fun to make our own triangle shaped cookies to help us get in the spirit. Our first attempt at making hamentaschen was a huge success! They were delicious.

We went to The Kosher Baker by Paula Shoyer for inspiration. Her dairy free recipes make kosher cooking easy as can be. By following her recipe to the T we were able to make super tasty and extremely festive hamentaschen.

Ingredients:(makes 4 dozen)
3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil
1 teaspoon orange juice (we used lemon juice)
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for sprinkling
1 cup fruit jam, preserves, canned apricot or poppy seed pie filling
(we used raspberry and apricot jam and nutela as fillings)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
In a large bowl (or mixer) mix eggs, sugar, oil, and orange (or lemon) juice

Add the baking powder and flower
Mix until the dough comes together

Knead with your hands to ensure the dough has the proper consistency
Roll out the dough until it is 1/4 of an inch thick

Using parchment paper helps to keep the dough from sticking to itself, and everything else
Use a glass (despite an amazing cookie cutter set, we did not have a round one!) with about 2-3 inches in diameter as a cookie cutter

Cut out circles in the dough

Roll up the left over dough and start the process all over again until all of the dough is used up
This recipe should make about 4 dozen cookies

Place the dough circles on a cookie sheet

Prepare the fillings

Use a spoon to place one filling in the center of a cookie

Pinch and fold up the sides of the dough on three corners to create a triangle

Make sure that the sides are the folded up tightly to keep its shape and the filling in place

Bake for 12 to 16 minutes, or until the bottoms are lightly browned
Do not wait until the top is brown because the cookies will be too hard
Hamentaschen should be a little soft so you can easily eat the cookie and filling in one nice triangle treat

Let the hamentaschen cool and enjoy!

In just a few minutes you too can enjoy a delicious Purim treat. Chag Sameach!