Hamantaschen
The festive Jewish holiday of Purim wouldn’t be the same without the traditional sweet cookie known as Hamantaschen. These delicious triangle-shaped filled cookies are easy to make and so fun to fill. The shortbread cookie is buttery and tender, not moist, not dry…just right!
Purim is a holiday that celebrates the deliverance of the Jewish people from oppression in Persia. The main villain in the story is an official of the regime named Haman. He wore a triangular-shaped hat which is why we poke fun at him and his defeat by making the cookies into triangles. They are not only delicious but meaningful as well!
For the shortbread dough, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, softened butter, egg yolks, sour cream and vanilla in a bowl. Use your hands to mix it all together incorporating the butter. Try not to overmix it.
Roll the dough and cut out 3-inch circles. Place a dollop of your filling in the middle of the circle (I used Nutella and raspberry jam…not together, but in separate cookies).
Brush the outer 1/2-inch of the circle with egg white and seal the top of the circle together. Seal the bottom two edges of the circle together, forming a triangle. Place them on a cookie sheet and refrigerate or freeze until you preheat the oven.
Bake the hamantaschen until just starting to brown. Remove from the oven and transfer to a rack. Let cool completely and sprinkle powdered sugar over the top.
If you want, you can add extra filling to the opening of each cookie. I used a pastry bag with 1/4-inch snipped off the end.
As well, if you use strawberry or raspberry jam as your filling, you can brush a little egg white along the top edge of the oping and sprinkle with pink coarse sugar. It just gives it a festive look!
One issue that can happen when baking hamantaschen is that they open up during baking.
First, this is very common and happens all the time. It is a problem if all or most of the cookies open up. Here are some reasons and tips on how to avoid it:
- Too much filling. Add less than you want. For a 3-inch circle, use about one teaspoon of filling, the size of a Hersey’s Kiss (also a great filling), or three chocolate chips. I always use a piping bag to refill the cookies after baking.
- Brush the dough with egg white or water before shaping the dough. This is kind of “gluing the cookies.”
- Freeze or refrigerate the dough for about 30-60 minutes before baking. This way, the cookies will be set before they spread and open.
- The dough is too thick. Roll the dough no thicker than 1/4 inch (I prefer the dough to be 1/8-inch thick).
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Hamantaschen
Makes: 32 medium hamantaschen
Prep Time: 40 minutes
Bake Time: 15 minutes per sheet
Total Time: 1 hour & 10 minutes
Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour (360g)
- 1/2 cup sugar (100g)
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened (225g)
- 2 large eggs, separated
- 4 tbsp sour cream (60g)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 cup Nutella, poppy seeds filling, or jam for filling
- 1/4 cup powdered sugar, for sprinkling
Instructions
Line two cookie pans with parchment paper.
Place all ingredients, except Nutella and powdered sugar, in a big bowl and mix with your hands until a dough is formed. Set aside to rest for 30 minutes.
Divide the dough into four pieces.
Flour the surface of your work area and roll each piece 1/8-inch thick.Use a 3-inch cookie cutter to cut the dough into circles.
Mount the center of each circle with one teaspoon of the filling. Use the egg whites and brush some around the edges of the cut circles. Form a triangle by lifting each circle with your index fingers and pinching the corner where the dough meets. Repeat with the other two corners.
Place the shaped cookies over a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
Heat the oven to 350°F. Place the cookies in the refrigerator or freezer for 20-30 minutes while the oven is heating. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until just starting to brown along the edges. Remove from the oven, and transfer to a wire rack.
Let cool completely. Sprinkle powdered sugar over the tops and , if desired, place a bit of filling into a piping bag, snip off 1/4-inch of the bag and fill the opening a little fuller.
Chef’s Note:
If using jam, I like to run a little of the egg white over the opening edge and sprinkle some pink coarse sugar over to give it a festive look (see blog post).
There will be lots of pastry dough left over from when you cut the circles. You can gather it together and re-roll it to make more cookies, but the dough may become a little overworked and crack. My raspberry hamantaschen in my blog are the result of overworking the dough. They still taste great, but don’t look quite as pretty. I just hated to waste all of that dough!
Recipe adapted from One Sarcastic Baker
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