Friday, March 18, 2011

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!

6 comments:

  1. Delicious little cookie.
    It's so easy but because you could use so many different fillings, it offers so much to please everyone.

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  2. Oh my word! These look so scrumptious! I want one!!

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  3. I just had to make 4 dozen Hamantaschen (using the NY Times recipe) for a friend at work. Not being Jewish myself, I wanted them to be perfect and traditional... turns out everyone loved them (he passed them on to his rabbi, and a few of his friends). So I'm happy to say I can add these little repertoire!

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  4. @Joanne,thanks. The different fillings are really the best part!

    @Steph, you should try one, they are tasty!

    @Peggy, that is wonderful. The steal of approval from a Rabbi! That is big time :)

    @Tina, thanks!

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  5. What perfect little triangles! I'd love to have a sample :)

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