How to make really good hamentashen

This year's Hamentash-a-thon was a huge success. We made a mountain of hamentashen and introduced a new filling! And at least two people who had never made a hamentash before got to make their first hamentash.

What, you may ask, is a hamentash? Well the first thing you need to know is the singular is hamentash, plural is hamentashen. They are triangular, filled cookies eaten to celebrate the holiday of Purim. I'm not going to explain the holiday. It is way too complicated. And you'll find oodles of sites devoted to Jewish holidays that can do a much better job. Suffice it to say that we make and eat hamentashen on Purim. You may be able to find similar triangular, filled cookies in Jewish bakeries at other times of the year, but authentic, homemade hamentashen are much better and you won't find them out of season. It just isn't done.

I've been making and eating hamentashen my entire life. My first hamentash was probably eaten at the religious school Purim festival. It was probably filled with prune jam and it was probably made with a yeast dough. I can't find that kind of hamentashen anywhere these days. I've tried making yeast raised hamentash, so far without success. Maybe next year!

We made hamentash at home when I was a child using a cookie dough that had oil instead of butter or margarine. I don't know why, but that was the dough we used. Several years ago I experimented making hamentashen with an Italian pasta frollo, or pastry dough, that calls for butter. It was delicious and that dough, from The Italian Baker by Carol Field, is now my favorite choice. For the hamentah-a-thon I always make some of the Italian dough as well as the Flo Braker recipe, which is very popular and very easy to handle. I also make an "out-of-the-box" hamentashen dough with brown sugar, rolled oats, and flavored with cinnamon and grated orange rind. It is a cookie dough from a Sunset magazine recipe for Apricot Blossoms. It tastes great with apricot or cherry filling and adds a little variety.

This year we had prune, poppy, cherry, and apricot filling. Plus one new, daring experimental filling.

I won't post most of the recipes here because recipes for two of the doughs and three of the fillings are already posted on another blog. But we tried a new Chocolate Walnut Cinnamon filling this year. It was truly delicious all by itself and combined with apricot filling it was unbelievable!!

Chocolate Walnut Cinnamon Filling
6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
3 ounces walnuts
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
6 tablespoons sugar
1 egg

Pulse the chocolate, walnuts, cinnamon and sugar together in a food processor until finely chopped. Add one egg and pulse a few times to combine.


I had dough and fillings ready when the hamentashen makers arrived. We spent the next 3 hours rolling and cutting the dough, enclosing a blob of filling inside each round by pinching up the sides to create a three cornered shape (see photo), glazing the shaped cookies with egg wash, and baking.

Ruth is brushing the sides of the cookies with egg wash. This step is optional, but I think it makes the hamentashen look much better.
Here you see Linda guarding the oven. She made sure we didn't burn any hamentashen.

Everyone who wanted to got to take home a selection of hamentashen. Carol, pictured here, claimed she had never made a hamentash before. But just look at those beautiful cookies!!!


Happy Purim!!