Hamentaschen

The Purim Holiday is coming up and Hamantaschen are a treat that we eat on Purim, Hamantaschen is the Yiddish name for them, which means, Haman's pockets, the villain who was hung. In Hebrew they are called Oznei Haman which means Haman's ears. Despite these 2 translations, Hamantaschen are also said to remind us of Haman's 3 cornered hat. Some people will tell you that jam/preserves filling in Hamantaschen are a new thing, and the true traditional ones are made with prune butter or mon (poppyseed) filling. Which leads me to think that maybe the term Hamantaschen is a Yebrew (Yiddish+Hebrew) conglomeration which rather than being separated into Haman Taschen(pockets), they were originally called Ha- ("the" in Hebrew) Mon-the Mon ("Poppyseed" in German and Yiddish) Taschen ("Pockets" in Yiddish). That would make sense poppyseed pockets. Of course that's all speculation, but who knows-I might just be right. I do think poppyseed filling is either hate it or love it.

Here's a really easy recipe for when you're short on time:

1 cake mix-any flavor (I used a Duncan Hines Butter Golden)
1 C. flour
2 eggs
2 Tbsp water
Apricot or Raspberry Preserves

Preheat oven to 375, Mix all together well.

If it's still too sticky, you can add more flour as a lot of times in baking it depends on the weather. I posted the original amounts, but I did have to add flour.

Roll out your dough-you want it a little bit thick-so if you usually make your cookies thin make them a little thicker this time.

Take a circle cookie cutter or a glass if you don't have a circle cutter. I used a glass because the only circle cookie cutters I have, have fluted edges. In my opinion Hamantaschen, should not have fluted edges and do not look as nice as ones without fluted edges. But, if it will make you happy go for it.

Once you have a bunch of circles, take some preserves-flavors usually used are apricot and raspberry, put a small amount on, if you use too much it will pop open. I used strawberry, don't ask why. But that's almost never seen in a hamantaschen, it's good, but raspberry is better. In the pictures are strawberry preserves.

Fold up the sides and then the bottom, it should form a triangle.

fold sides

close-up

even closer-up and not as blurry

Pinch the corners to help seal

Pinch the corners and then put egg white on to seal

Bake for 6-8 minutes.

The parts that have egg white are more of a golden color after baking
You can tell thatI did more than just the corners on some of them

Single Hamantaschen

Yep, I wasn't really in the mood to make them look very pretty

Please do not eat these straight out of the oven, however tempting it may be. The jelly will be extremely hot and may burn your mouth. Just wait for them to cool off a bit



Other fillings I used:
I ended up making a few different types, I also used spice cake mix. I filled some with a pumpkin filling, that I flavored a bit, used apple pie filling and caramel filling, as well as custard.

Play around with combinations, and see what you like best.

If you come up with anything interesting, let me know.