Name: Evy’s hamantashen dough
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 110 min
Ingredients: 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

It’s hamantashen time at our place.

The Jewish festival of Purim is coming soon.

Hamantashen is the name for the sweet three-cornered filled pastry served at Purim, representing the three-cornered hat of Haman, the villain of this festival.

Here is our wonderful recipe for fail proof hamantashen dough. This recipe was first published in our first book, Monday Morning Cooking Club – the food, the stories, the sisterhood.

Israeli-born Evy Royal has been with us since the start. Her magnificent hamantashen filled with halva and chocolate (that we have now revamped with two new fillings), and her exotic icing sugar-dredged date- and nut-stuffed mamoul biscuits, embody the inspiration from her Moroccan heritage. Her Israeli great-grandmother arrived at their doorstep every Friday night, laden with boxes overflowing with dessert after dessert. Decades later, living in Sydney with her own family, Evy still regrets not asking for those recipes at the time, as they are now long gone.

Evy’s is the best hamantashen pastry we have tasted, and we’ve spent more than a decade trying many many others. We’ve created two new filings to indulge our cravings: a Middle Eastern baklava-inspired one with a nutty filling that reminds Natanya of trips to Israel and another with a thick strawberry jam that reminds Lisa of childhood jam tarts from old-fashionedAustralian cake shops. It also luckily solves the problem of regular jam leaking out of the hamantashen all over the baking tray. You can find those recipes in Now for Something Sweet, our most recent book.

You can also fill them with a square of chocolate, your favourite jam, a spoon of 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) or nutella …whatever takes your fancy! If you use store bought jam, make sure you choose a thick one so it is less likely to spill out when baking. As mentioned above, it is a good idea to boil the jam in a saucepan for about 10 minutes and then allow to cool completely before using. This will ensure it doesn’t spill out of the pastries when they bake.

If you refrigerate the filled hamantashen for 1 hour before baking, they are less likely to split open.

Happy purim and happy baking!

The MMCC gals.

February 2021.

xxx

hamantashen Purim Jewish tradition triangular pastry

Evy’s hamantashen dough

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 15

Cook Time 20

Total Time 1 50

Course Sweet Things

Cuisine Jewish

Servings 20 pastries

Ingredients

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

Instructions

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 pastry. 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.
Bake for 20 minutes until golden.