Hamentashen - It's a Jewish Thing...

Hamentashen is the traditional cookie eaten during the Jewish holiday Purim. Purim is a festival that commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people of the ancient Persian Empire from Haman's plot to annihilate them.

Aside from their religious significance, Hamentashen are simply very delicious cookies! A wheat based butter cookie filled with a variety of fruit (chosen to your liking), these cookies can be enjoyed by anyone!

I recently participated in this group for young Jewish professionals in my area - great time & made some amazing friends. Last night we had a mini-reunion full of delicious food. As the resident baker, I decided to stay with the Jewish theme & made Hamentashen.


I found a great recipe on RecipeZaar.com. For the filling I used the Italian Wild Cherries that I won last fall with my Pie of the Vine Grape Pie. These were the perfect fruity adornment to my Hamentashen. You can use any flavor you want, though: strawberry, apricot, peach, poppy seed, prune...really, whatever your heart desires! I'll bet chocolate would be good too...Nuetella anyone??

Here is the recipe - again, very delicious!

Purim's Hamentashen Cookies

3/4 cups Butter (1 1/2 sticks)
3/4 cup Sugar
1 large Egg
1 tsp grated Lemon Zest or 1 tsp Lemon Juice
1 tsp Vanilla
1/4 tsp Salt
Filling of choice
Additional Sugar (for sprinkling)
2 1/4 cups Flour

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream butter in a bowl. Add sugar & beat until fluffy.

Beat in egg, lemon and vanilla.

Add flour & salt in 3 portions, mixing each time thoroughly. (If batter is still sticking to the sides of the bowl, add water at 1 drop increments until batter pulls away from the side of the bowl)

Place dough in a ziplock bag & refrigerate for 1-2 hours (until workable).

Roll dough out between two waxed paper sheets to 1/4 inch thickness. Using a cookie cutter, cut dough into circles ~ 2.5 - 3 inches in diameter. Place on pre-greased cookie sheet.

Spoon a small amount of filling into the center of each circle. **Note: you are going to want to put more filling in than needed - too much will ruin the way the cookies bake & will cause the dough to spread too thinly across the cookie sheet. If you're using cherries, you want to place only 2 cherries (3 if they're very small) in the center of your dough.


Fold & pinch up the side of your cookie in three places using your thumbs & two fingers so that you create the triangle shape. Pinch the corners together so they're completely sealed. You only want a small portion of the filling exposed - all else should be covered by the folded up dough.

Sprinkle a small amount of sugar over each cookie. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes (until the edges JUST start becoming pale golden. Any longer and the dough will start to spread too much.

Cool for 5 minutes on the cookie sheet & then move to cooling racks until your cookies are completely cool.

And finally, of course......Enjoy!