Purim = Hamentashens

March 16, 2014

Happy Purim, everybody! For those who are not familiar with Purim, this is a Jewish holiday that celebrates the success of Queen Esther (who was Jewish and married to King Ahasuerus) over Haman, the royal vizier, who conspired to kill the Jews living within the ancient Persian Empire.

I'll admit now, despite having a Jewish father, I never really grew up learning about Judaism. Since my mother is not Jewish, according the Judaism, I am not considered Jewish…so I guess that's my excuse. Sure, I know about Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, Passover, Hannukah…the main holidays, but we never went/go to temple and we don't really celebrate the Jewish holidays. That said, I LOVE hamentashens and I know that hamentashens are a Purim treat.

These delicious little cookies are filled with a jammy center (or finely chopped dried fruit center, in the case of my recipe) and they are meant to symbolize Hamen's triangular shaped hat. I may not know much about Purim, but I know I love these cookies!

Over the weekend, I recruited my dad to help me bake some hamentashen. We both love them and I love baking, so it seemed like the natural thing to do. Since my mother is Japanese, she did not have any hamentashen recipes to share and it seemed my father's mother and grandmother did not bake them either. It fell to me to create my own recipe. I searched online and came across several recipes. That said, I ended up mixing and matching, creating my own hamentashen recipe along the way. Whilst you can use any filling you like, I made prune and apricot hamentashens simply because they are dad's favorite --- especially prune.

I realize that Purim ends today and apologize for the posting this sooner, but hey, better late than never, right? I hope you enjoy these delicious triangular confections as much as my family I do!

Ingredients:

for dough:

- 8 oz butter

- 6 oz cream cheese

- 4 eggs

- 1.5 cup sugar

- 3 tsp vanilla extract

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 5~6 cups cake flour

- 6 tsp baking powder

- 1/2 cup milk

for prune/apricot filling:

- 2 bags dried prunes or 2 bags dried apricot

- 1/4 cup orange juice

- 1 tbsp honey

Directions:

for dough:

1. Preheat oven to 375F.

2. In a large bowl, mix: butter, cream cheese, eggs, sugar, and vanilla.

3. Add salt, baking powder, milk, and 5 cups flour to bowl.

(If your dough is incredibly sticky, add an additional cup of flour.)

4. Once dough is made, let sit in fridge to firm up. This is important because the dough will be sticky and if you try to work with it immediately, you will get frustrated. (TRUST ME --- I KNOW!)

for filling:

1. Add your dried fruit to a food processor. Let the food processor finely chopp the dried fruit.

2. Add your orange juice and honey. Mix until you get a pretty fine consistency.

The apricots will appear finely chopped and the prunes will resemble a paste.

assembly of hamentashens:

1. Dust your work space and rolling pin with flour. Roll out your dough, making it fairly thin.

2. Using a sizable circular cookie cutter, proceed to cut circles.

3. Take a dollop of filling and place it in the center of the dough circle.

4. You want to make mini triangles, so fold one side of the circle up. Don't go too far up --- maybe a half inch. Fold the other two sides so that you get a triangle.

(Note: Pinching the ends is not enough. You literally want each fold to be on top of the other. This is help the hamentashen stay together whilst baking.)