Well, it is certainly that time of the year! Purim is almost upon us, and not only is our town a hustle and bustle of costume shopping and basket coordination, but as of a few weeks ago, the hamantasch cookie appeared on bakery and supermarket shelves with much competition. The Hamantash commemorates the 3 cornered hat that Haman wore. It’s only been in recent years that I’ve developed a liking to Hamantaschen, with my favorite brand being Reisman’s, and my preferred filling being raspberry. For some reason, you cannot buy a package of only raspberry filled cookies. The boxes are a combination of apricot and raspberry filled, so I am always evaluating the sealed packages to see which ones have more raspberry than apricot. Somehow, it always seems to look like they put the raspberry ones on top and inevitably, hide the apricot filled ones underneath! What I like most about the Reisman’s brand is its soft cookie dough with no crunch at all. When I can, I make a special trip to a local store (Feldman’s) which sells the cookies loose from a case and I can get as many raspberry filled Hamantaschen as I’d like.
Last year was the first year I made my own Hamantashen. They were fun to make and quite good to eat. I filled some with raspberry jam and some with prune jam (lekvar) and loved them both. I also seem to remember that I ate most of them myself, which means, that it remains to be seen if I will bake a batch of these yummy treats today!
Photo Credit: Jennysnoodle.blogspot.com, Recipe credit: Rivka Malka Perlman
INGREDIENTS
2 cups sugar
1 cup oil
6 eggs
3 tsp baking powder
6-7 cups flour
Filling choices can include: apricot jam, poppy seed filling, raspberry jam, strawberry jam and prune jam (lekvar).
DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Mix ingredients together. On a floured surface, roll the dough thin with a rolling pin. Cut out 2-3 inch circles with a cookie cutter or upside down drinking glass. Put approximately 1 teaspoon of a filling of your choice in the center of each round. Lift the sides of the dough and pinch the cookie to form a triangle. Bake for about 7 minutes until very light brown begins to show (should be pale).
