Buttery Hamantaschen

Purim is one of my favorite holidays on the Jewish calendar. It is fun, festive, everyone gets dressed up in costume. It is a holiday that gets the whole community involved. It is a beautiful thing. I bake Hamantaschen EVERY year to get into the holiday spirit. I find that every year I use a different recipe. This year I tinkered with a recipe that I had used in the past and the results were buttery deliciousness.

I also struggle with what fillings to use. This year I was limited to what I already had in the house. Last night, when I was preparing to bake them, we were having a small ice/snow storm and the roads were a mess. I was not heading to Trader Joe’s for additional filling options. Surprisingly I had many fun options already in my kitchen cabinet! I filled my Hamantaschen with Nutella, Stonewall Kitchen Wild Maine Blueberry Jam (my favorite), Liebers Raspberry Preserves and Skippy Smooth Peanut Butter (E’s favorite). We taste tested several of them before packing up our Mishloach Manot and they were all so amazing! E and I each brought a batch into work and they all disappeared. The recipe is super easy and requires very few ingredients. One thing I highly recommend though would be to refrigerate the dough for at least an hour before rolling it and attempting to cut circles. It is MUCH easier to handle the dough post refrigeration.

Hope you enjoy as much as we did! Happy Purim!

Ingredients:

2-1/2 cups flour

1/4 cup orange juice

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2 eggs, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup softened butter (~ 2 sticks)

1 cup white granulated sugar

Directions:

Spray cookie sheets with Pam or line with parchment paper.
In a large bowl or Kitchenaid mixer beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the vanilla, eggs, orange juice, baking powder, and baking soda. Mix until combined.
Add the flour, a 1/2 cup at a time.
Stir the batter to form a stiff dough.
Wrap the dough in Saran Wrap and refrigerate the dough for one (1) hour.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
On a lightly floured counter, roll out the dough to a 1/4 thickness. Add flour if the dough is sticky
Cut the dough into circles using a cookie cutter, biscuit cutter, or the top of a drinking glass.
Spoon about 1 teaspoon of filling into the center of each circle.
Pinch the edges to form three corners – like the three corners of Haman’s Hat!
Bake for 14-15 minutes or until lightly browned.
Allow the cookies to cool for 5 minutes on the cookie sheet before removing and placing on a wire rack to cool completely.