It’s hamantashen time at our place.
The Jewish Festival of Purim falls on 25th/26th February this year.
Hamantashen is the name for the sweet three-cornered filled pastry served at Purim, representing the hat of Haman, the villain of this festival.
In our latest book Now for Something Sweet we have revisited the original (and best) hamantashen recipe and have updated and teamed it with two fabulous new fillings: one inspired by baklava and the other a thickened jam to avoid all those pesky jam leakages all over the tray.
You can also fill them with chocolate, jam, povidl (buy at gourmet produce stores or make your own), walnuts and sugar, poppyseed (a favourite filling is in Elisabeth’s beigli in our first book), nutella and sultanas…whatever takes your fancy!
Here is the now-iconic MMCC recipe from Evy Royal for fail proof hamantashen, first published in “Monday Morning Cooking Club – the food, the stories, the sisterhood” (2011).
| Evy’s Hamantashen dough |
| Servings |
| 20pastries |
| Servings |
| 20pastries |
- 225 g plain flour 1 ½ cups
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
- 100 g Unsalted Butter at room temperature
- 2 egg yolks
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 60 g sugar 1/4 cup
- 75 g Sour Cream
|
Ingredients
Servings: pastries
Units:
|
- To make the dough, combine all the ingredients either in a food processor or by hand. Form the dough into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap and rest in the fridge for 1 hour.
- Line a baking sheet with baking paper.
- Roll the dough out to a 3 mm thickness. With an 8–9 cm diameter cookie cutter or glass, cut out circles from the dough. Place a teaspoon of your filling on each circle. Bring the three sides of the circle up into the centre (leaving a small opening at the top if you wish) to form a triangular pastry, pinching the three ‘joined edges’ to seal.
- Place on the prepared baking sheet and refrigerate for 15 minutes while you preheat the oven to 180°C. This is an important step to help prevent the pastries opening in the oven.
- Bake for 20 minutes until golden.
