When my parents went away on vacation one year, my grandmother stayed at our house to look after me and my younger siblings.
It was around Purim, a favourite holiday of mine. I always liked the story of Queen Esther, and dressing up in costumes was fun. But the best part of the holiday was the food – in particular, the mishloach manot or platters of sweets people gave to friends and family.
There was always lots of chocolate – cookies, brownies cupcakes… The only things I didn’t touch were the hamantashen, the traditional triangular-shaped pastry eaten on Purim.
I could not get too excited about eating these prune and poppy-seed filled cookies.
At Purim time, my mother would often buy a few token hamantashen, which nobody ate. They were these big doughy triangles the size of small plates.
But my grandmother baked her own, and when she stayed at our house the year my parents went on holiday, she wanted me to watch her make hamantashen – all eight dozen. Needless to say I was not very happy.
I remember sitting at the table for hours as my grandmother rolled out sheets of dough and slowly cut out circular shapes with a glass. Then she carefully placed tiny mounds of prune filling and pinched the dough closed to form these very dainty triangular treats.
Of course, she wanted me to eat her hamantashen. I had to fake enthusiasm, because I didn’t like prunes. In retrospect, I realize that these home-made hamantashen were probably very good. But I was 11 or 12 at the time. What did I know?
Now that I’m a grandmother, I thought I should learn to make hamantashen. My grandson is only 21 months and so he won’t be eating my hamanstshen anytime soon. That gives me a few years to get the recipe right.
My initial effort has been pretty good. Food maven and cookbook author, Norene Gilletz, sampled my first batch and gave it a thumbs up. That’s an encouraging endorsement.
I created the recipe for the filling – there are no poppy seeds or prunes. But I have discovered that making hamantashen is extremely labour intensive. It’s a major patchkeh.
When my grandson is permitted to eat treats from a mishloach manot platter one day, I realize he may not want to eat any hamentashen…not even mine.
I will never insist that he try them no matter how hard I may have slaved away in the kitchen, and he will never have to sit and watch me make hamantashen.
CHERRY ALMOND HAMANTASHEN
Hamentashen Cream Cheese Dough
This dough recipe comes from Second Helpings, Please!, the first cookbook Gilletz edited. I only made half the dough and I slightly altered the ratio of sugar and flour
¼ lb. cream cheese, cut in chunks
¼ lb. butter, cut in chunks
¼ cup icing sugar
7/8 cup all purpose flour
Filling
1/3 cup dried cherries, chopped
1-2 tbsp. maple syrup
1 cup ground almonds, divided
3 tbsp. mini chocolate chips
3 tbsp. of pecans, chopped
Preheat oven to 350. To make the dough, cream cheese and butter in a mixer. Add sugar and flour and mix well. Remove the dough from the mixer and divide it into three balls. Wrap them in wax paper and refrigerate overnight.
In a medium-size bowl combine the syrup with ½ cup of the ground almonds. Mix well.
Add the cherries and pecans and mix well. Add the remainder of the almonds and if the mixture is too dry add more syrup, up to an additional tbsp. If this is prepared in advance, cover the bowl with plastic wrap, but do not refrigerate.
Roll out each ball of dough to 1/8 in. thickness, but keep the other balls of dough refrigerated until they are used. Cut the dough in 2-inch rounds. Fill each round with 1 tsp of the fruit and nut mixture. Shape the hamentashen by brining the sides together to form a triangle. Seal the points of the triangle well, by squeezing the dough. Bake on a greased or parchment-paper lined baking sheet at 350 for 18 minutes or until the hamentashen are delicately browned. Makes about 2 ½ dozen cookies.
Traditional prune filling (Second Helping, Please!)
½ lb. pitted prunes, stewed and chopped
½ cup raisins, chopped
1/8 cup chopped nuts
¼ lemon, juice and grated zest
1/8 cup bread crumbs
¼ cup sugar
2 tsp. honey
Combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly.
1 cup dates (about 8 oz.), pitted and quartered
1 tsp finely grated orange zest
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp kosher salt
1 tbsp unsalted butter
Bring dates, orange zest, cinnamon, salt, and 1½ cups water to a boil in a small saucepan. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring often and mashing with a heatproof spatula, until dates are very soft and jammy, about 5 minutes. Add butter and stir until melted. Let cool.