Hamantaschen

When I was in preschool, my favorite snack was hamantaschen. Those little cookies, filled with jam or sweet seeds always made my day. I've found hamantaschen at a few bakeries here and there, and it's always a fun surprise. Today, I decided to make these cookies that bring me so much joy.

Ideally, I would've made a strawberry jam or apricot filling, because those were always my favorite flavors, but I didn't have the right ingredients for that. I did, however, have poppy seeds, which are another popular hamantaschen flavor, so I decided on a poppy seed filling. I got out the ingredients that I needed for the filling:

8 oz poppy seeds

1/4 cup butter

1 cup milk

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup honey

1/4 tsp salt

2 eggs

I started out by grinding the poppy seeds in a coffee grinder so they were fine and powdery. Then, I melted the butter in a saucepan, and added in the milk, sugar, honey, and salt. I waited until the sugar and honey were dissolved before moving on.

 

Next, I whisked my two eggs in a separate bowl, and tempered them by slowly drizzling a cup of the hot butter mixture over them, whisking constantly. It took about a minute, and then I was good to pour the eggs into the saucepan. 

I kept an eye on the mixture, and kept stirring for about 5 minutes, until it had thickened. I dipped a spoon into the mixture to check, and the mixture thoroughly coated the spoon, and didn't run back together when I swiped my finger down it. Perfect!

 

It was finally time to add in the poppy seeds. I took the mixture off of the heat and mixed in the ground seeds. It didn't make the most appetizing looking mixture, but I took a little taste and it was still yummy.

 

I put the filling in a different container and popped it in the fridge to cool down. Now, it was time to start on the cookie part of the hamantaschen. I started out by preheating my oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Then, I mixed together the wet ingredients:

2 eggs

2/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup oil

1 tsp vanilla

The recipe also calls for 1 tsp orange zest, and I'm sure that that would've been delicious, but I didn't have any oranges on hand, so I opted out of including that. After mixing together the wet ingredients, I mixed together the dry ingredients in a separate bowl:

2 1/4 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

After those were mixed together, I added the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. It all came together to form a crumbly dough. 

 

Then, I kneaded the dough until it was smooth, and slightly tacky to the touch.

 

Next, I floured my surface (and my rolling pin, to stop the dough from sticking to it) and rolled the dough out to about 1/8 of an inch thick. This is actually some of the easiest dough I've worked with, and while I've had trouble before with rolling out dough super thin (see: my experience making sourdough croissants) this time was pretty easy.

 

I then cut the dough into circles about 3 inch circles, collecting and re-rolling the dough until all of it had been used up-- I will admit that I ate a decent chunk of the dough while I was doing this because it tasted like sugar cookie dough and I was having trouble stopping.

 

Finally, it was time to put the cookies together. I took the filling out of the fridge, and got to work. Going one circle at a time, I put 1 tsp of filling right in the center.

 

As a side note, I started really wishing that I had done some sort of jam hamantaschen, because however good the poppy seed filling tasted, it just didn't look appetizing at all on camera. Regardless, I then folded the left side of the circle over, slightly covering the filling.

 

Next, I folded the right side over, pinching the corners together at the top where the left and right sides intersected.

 

Finally, I folded the bottom side of the circle up, folding the right side over the bottom, but ensuring that the bottom side was folded over the left side--this gives a nice pinwheel looking fold, but also keeps the filling inside the cookie as it bakes.

 

I continued this technique with all of the circles until I had used up (or eaten) all of the dough. I placed them on a greased baking sheet, and popped them into the oven for about 25 minutes. 

 

I took them out when they were golden brown, and ate one as soon as they cooled off. While I did wish I had made my favorite flavor, these were still really good, and really fun to learn how to make! Who knew that hamantaschen started out as circles?!