Baking Adventures: Hamantaschen

Today was the Jewish Holiday Purim. It started Wednesday at sundown and continued through today. The full story can be found here. Now, during Purim Jewish children dress up in costumes, play with noise makers and at the local Jewish Community Centers and Synagogs, carnivals are thrown. I've been working at a JCC for a few years now, and even though I'm not Jewish, I love participating in these celebrations, especially when there's cookies to be had!

Hamantaschen are little triangular cookies that are filled with something. Jams, applebutter, chocolate, pastry cream. Whatever you want in a cookie. They are called Hamantaschen becasue the bad guy in the story of Purim, Haman, wore a triangle shaped cap. He was defeated in the end, now we eat cookies named after him. They are pretty labor intensive. I made some with 12 kids today, but I'm going to reproduce them in my kitchen for your enjoyment. The recipe can be found here.

Cream together 1/3 cup of oil with 1/2 cup butter, and 1 cup of sugar. Add the eggs (I used 4) and some vanilla extract (1-2 tsp)

Add the dry ingredients: 3 tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt, and 4 cups of flower.

Roll out onto a floured surface until thin.

Using a glass, cut out circles.

Place on the cookie sheet, and fill with your favorite preserves!

I have quite a few, but I decided to use blackberry, blueberry and mixed berry preserves.

Once these are filled, fold the circles into a triangle. You can do an egg wash, with is a beaten egg with a bit of milk to brush into the cookie before baking. It's up to you.