Hamantashen
Don't ask me how to pronounce it, cause I haven't a clue. But I can tell you how easy and delicious these little cookies are. They are part of the jewish holiday commemmorating their deliverance from the ancient persian empire and 'hamans' plot to annihilate them. And I can't think of a better way to celebrate non-annihilation than to eat cookies. I am not jewish so the meaning behind these doesn't really pertain to me, but the intricacy of them peaked my interest. I added my own twist to the traditional recipe by adding lemon juice. The dough is simple and comes together easily. Rolling it out was simple as well. The only complicated issue was forming them into the 'hat' shape. And, keeping up with my poor organization skills, I completely forgot to take the pictures of how to form them. But I will do my best to describe it to you as we get more into it. So here we go.
Ingredients: Flour, salt, vanilla, butter flavoring (wilton), salt, butter, egg, lemon, cream cheese, and jam.
Mix the butter and cream cheese till smooth. Add the sugar through the zest; mixing well. Then add the flour. As the dough comes together it will be sticky, that's ok. Just add another of the Tablespoons of flour till it is tacky, but not sticky. Put in plastic wrap and form into disc; then place in fridge for a couple hours.
Roll dough out onto floured surface and cut into about 1/8 - 1/4 circles. Place on parchment paper on sheet pan.
Now we are going to form these.
On one end of the circle fold over and pinch the ends together. Then go to the side and pinch those ends together forming a triangle. Make sure
Hamantashen
20-22 cookies 2-inch cookies
8 tbls butter, softened
3 oz cream cheese
3 tbls sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp butter flavoring
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 Tbls lemon juice
1/2 tsp lemon zest
1 1/3 cup plus 2 Tbs flour
1/4 tsp salt
Jam any flavor, or multi flavors
Cream butter and cheese. Add sugar, egg, vanilla extract, zest and salt - mixing till combined. Add the flour and mix just till combined. As the mixture comes together it may be a tad sticky. If too sticky, add an additional tablespoon of flour.
Form dough into a disc, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least an hour.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
To form, roll out dough on a well-floured surface until it is about 1/8 to 1/4 in thick. Using a round cookie cutter ( I used a 2 1/2 inch one), cut the dough into circles. Spoon a teaspoon of the jam (I used apricot, strawberry and raspberry) in the center. Fold the dough in from three sides and firmly crimp the corners to seal and give them a little twist to ensure they stay closed. Try to leave a bit of the filling showing through the center. Bake on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake until golden
brown, about 20 minutes.
Cool on racks. Resist the urge to try them while still hot, unless you want a jam-burned tongue.