In further honour of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Sunday, I decided a sweet treat would be a perfect inclusion! When are they never a perfect inclusion?
These little Jewish Hamantaschen cookies appear to be simple but they are incredibly delicious! Hamantaschen cookies are shaped into a triangle – and it represents the hat of Haman. Remember him? The anti-Semitic Hitler of ancient Persia whose main aim was to wipe out all the Jewish people in the land? Thanks to the obedience of fasting and prayer of Queen Esther, his plan backfired and he was hung from the gallows. Tsk tsk.
I got the recipe from my friend and substituted all -purpose flour with whole-wheat flour. The whole-wheat gives it that extra crunch!
To make these yummies you need:
- 2 1/2 – 3 cups whole-wheat flour
- 2/3 cup butter
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- dash of salt
- Filling of your choice – usually preserves such as jams, apricot jam, plum jam, prune jam or even Nutella! I used apricot jam and sesame seeds
- Cream the butter with sugar. Add egg and continue creaming until smooth.
- Add the vanilla. Stir in the sifted flour, baking powder, and salt until a ball of dough is formed.
- Chill for 2-3 hours (overnight is ok too)
- Preheat oven to 375F/190C degrees.
- Taking 1/4 of the dough, roll out on a lightly floured board to a thickness of 1/8 inch. Cut circles of dough with a round cookie-cutter. Fill with 1 teaspoon of your choice filling and fold into three-cornered cookies.
It takes some practice and still mine weren’t that great after they finished baking. Press two sides together at the top, and then fold the bottom side up and press the ends together.)
- Bake on a well-greased cookie sheet 10-16 minutes, until the tops are golden.
Some tips I can give you:
– Don’t use a filling that is too runny, try use a thick consistency filling or it will run out during baking
– Don’t use more than a teaspoon of filling, for the same reason as above
– Try shape your triangles better than mine! As you can see, my triangle shaping needs some, well a lot of work, haha! But no matter the shape they are yummy supreme!
These make 24 cookies and will be gobbled up in one day. I actually made some thumbprint cookies with the left over dough!
kingintraining 