Hamantaschen recipe

Here is the hamantaschen recipe used in the shul's mishloach manot, adapted from Maida Heatter's Book of Great Cookies. It makes about 30. The original filling recipe contained ¾ cup walnuts and twice as much of everything else, and made far too much.

Make the dough and filling the night before, or at least several hours before baking.

Tools and nonfood supplies needed:

food processor or pastry cutter
rolling pin
baking sheets, covered with aluminum foil or baking paper
3" round cookie cutter
plastic wrap or sealable plastic bag

Dough

Sift, or combine in food processor
2 cups sifted flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ cup sugar
Cut into ½ inch slices, cut in with a pastry cutter, or mix in food processor, until butter is in tiny pieces.
110 grams (US: 1 stick) butter, cold and firm
Mix in
1 egg, lightly beaten
finely grated rind of one bright-colored orange
1½ tablespoon orange juice
Wrap in plastic wrap, or seal in a plastic bag, fridge several hours or overnight.

Filling

Cut in small pieces
170 grams (6 oz) dried pitted (see Note, below) prunes.
85 grams (3 oz) unsweetened dried apricots
Put in a pot with
½ cup water
Bring to a boil, lower the heat, and simmer, covered, 10 to 15 minutes, until very soft. Add more water if it gets dry.
Add, cook, stirring almost constantly 5 minutes
½ tablespoon lemon juice
¼ cup honey

Baking

Heat oven to 400°F (200°C). Cut aluminum foil or baking paper to fit baking sheets.

On a floured surface, with a floured rolling pin, roll half of the dough to 1/8 inch thickness. It also helps to dip the dough into flour before rolling. Cut out circles with the cookie cutter. If a circle looks too thin, tears, or has something else wrong with it, leave it with the scraps of dough for the next batch.

Place a rounded teaspoonful of filling in the center of each circle, fold sides so it looks like a hamantasch, and pinch corners. Transfer to the baking sheet. If the baking sheets are already hot, put them on a plate until you have enough to fill two sheets.

Add some more dough to the scraps of dough, mix so it is of uniform consistency, and roll out more circles.

Do not crowd hamantachen too close on the baking sheets, or you will get one large hamantasch - they spread out slightly while baking.

Bake 12 to 15 minutes until the hamantaschen are barely colored on the sides. Reverse the sheets top to bottom and front to back halfway thru baking.

Transfer baked hamantaschen with a wide spatula - make sure it's as large as the hamantaschen so they don't fall apart - to a rack or a plate until they are completely cool. Wrapping them before they are completely cool will make them stick together.

Note

Pitted means "having the pits removed". You can also buy regular prunes and remove the pits yourself, but then I can't tell you how much to buy.


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