Welcome back! Fresh off our matzo ball soup adventures, we are back with a Purim-related undertaking: hamantaschen!
For those who are unfamiliar with the story of Purim, it's a long and dark one (most Jewish celebrations are based on a history of that nature) that, in this day and age, yields a joyful celebration. Every year on Purim, kids dress up in costume to go to synagogue where they eat candy, these cookies, and have an all-out blast booing the cookies' namesake Hamen, an evil, evil man who spent a lot of time and energy trying to eradicate us.
...My childhood memories of Purim are tinged with exactly that aforementioned kind of happiness, the kind borne of a relief you feel around you but don't quite understand yet: I got to wear absurd clothing to a place I otherwise had to wear stockings and a head-covering to, my brother and I could cheer loudly without fear of being shushed, and my whole family would gather around a pile of delicious cookies we wouldn't get to see until around the same time next year.
So! I love hamentaschen. I love them so much I could cry. But I won't! I'll just help you make them so you can cry. A fantastic cookie will just do that to a person sometimes, ya know?
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Combine 1 stick of butter (or the equivalent amount of margarine, if you're looking to go fully kosher) and 1 cup of sugar on medium speed in the bowl of a stand mixer. Add one egg and combine further.
Add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, as well as the zest of 1 orange, the juice of half a lemon, and 1 tablespoon of milk (which you can also skip or swap for water for pareve reasons should you so choose!). Mix until combined.
In a large bowl, combine 2 cups of flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder, and a pinch of salt. With the mixer on medium speed, add the dry mixture to the wet ingredients 1/3 at a time until just combined.
Gather the dough into as neat a ball as you can and cover it in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 10 minutes.
Place ball of dough onto a heavily floured surface. Roll to about 1/8-inch thick. Cut out ~20 2' circles using a cookie cutter and space them out between two large baking sheets.
Drop 1 teaspoon of the filling of your choice (most Jews go with traditional raspberry jam, but chocolate chips, poppy seeds, and other jellies/jams are common too!) into the center of each circle. Use your pointer finger to trace a line of water around the circumference of each circle and quickly pinch the sides together around the filling to create a triangle. Be sure to tightly pinch the corners—it's not uncommon for Hamentaschen filling to bleed out.
Egg-wash the cookies and place them in the oven for 15-17 minutes until lightly golden brown. Allow 5 minutes to rest and enjoy with cold milk.
Happy Purim. See you next time.
