Traditional Hamantaschen - Haman’s pockets

My daughter is participating school culture emporium, where she explores culture other than her own. For her first project, she choose to cook some Jewish food. She picked the Hamantaschen - a triangular-shaped pastries that are traditionally eaten during the Jewish holiday of Purim.

According to http://judaism.about.com/od/holidays/a/hamantaschen.htm, "Hamantaschen" is a Yiddish word meaning "Haman’s pockets." Haman is the villain in the Purim story, which appears in the Biblical Book of Esther. In the story, Haman is the Grand Vizier of Persia and a rabid anti-Semite. When Mordechai, a Jewish member of the king's court and relative of Queen Esther, refuses to bow down to Haman, the Grand Vizier plots to have all the Jews in the kingdom massacred. However, Queen Esther and Mordechai discover Haman's plot and are able to foil it. In the end, Haman is executed on the gallows he planned to use on Mordechai. Jews eat hamantaschen on Purim as part of the celebration of the holiday, which commemorates how Jews escaped Haman's dastardly plans. One explanation for the triangular shape of these pastries is that Haman wore a three-cornered hat. Another explanation is that the three corners represent Queen Esther's strength and the founders of Judaism: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

The original recipe we found is from http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Traditional-Hamantaschen-13706. To simplify, we used strawberry jam instead of making the filling from scratch. We also used butter instead of vegetable shortening.

Ingredients:

All-purpose flour - 2 cups
Baking powder - 2 tsp
Salt - 1/8 tsp
Butter - 1/2 cup, soften
Sugar - 1 cup
Egg - 1 large
Orange - 1 used to make
       --- finely grated fresh orange zest - 2 tsp packed
       --- fresh orange juice - 1 TBSP

Strawberry jam - 2/3 cup

This makes about 18-24 cookies. Note that because we need to chill the dough overnight, you should plan ahead.

Material cost: approx. $4.00

Equipment:

Convention oven, electrical mixer, mixing bowls(2), juicer for orange juice, grater/knife to chop orange zest, measuring cup and spoons.

Steps:

1. Cut orange in halves, use juicer to make fresh orange juice. Use grater to grate the orange zest. If do not have grater, you can use knife to finely chop it. 

2. In one mixing bowl, mix flour, baking power and salt.

3. In another mixing bowl, beat butter, sugar, egg with electrical mixer until light and fluffy. Add orange zest and juice. Add mixture from step 2, stirring until  a smooth dough is formed. 

4. Gather dough into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap, or put in sealed container. Put in refrigerator to chill overnight. (original recipe recommends 3 hour to 2 days)

5. Preheat oven to 375°F.
6. On a lightly floured surface roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thick sheet. With a 3-inch cutter cut out as many rounds as possible. We did not have a round cutter, so we used a plastic kid cup.

7. Transfer rounds to a large baking sheet, arranging about 1/2 inch apart. Put 1 teaspoon filling in center of each round and fold up edges to form triangular cookies resembling a tricornered hat, pinching corners together and leaving filling exposed. (Pinch dough tightly enough so seams are no longer visible and sides are taut enough to prevent cookies from leaking filling as they bake.)

8. Bake in oven for 20 minutes, or until pale golden.

9. Cool hamantaschen on baking sheet for 5 minutes and transfer to plate to cool completely. According to recipe, Hamantaschen can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature 5 days.

As my daughter's first try, the cookies are not as pretty as the pictures from recipe. It tastes great, kind of like a butter cookie with hint of orange. The strawberry jam works well as filling. My daughter brought a few to school for her teacher, and we finished the rest within 2 days :-)  Now we had some practice in folding the corners, we will post some nicer pictures when we try this again.