As many of you know, us Jews love food and any true Jewish holiday is centered around copious amounts of it, and Purim is no exception. Not only do we give each other gifts of food (mishloach manot), have a giant meal together (seudah), and drink until we drop, we also celebrate the holiday with a lovely cookie called a Hamantaschen (cue the multiple spellings of any Yiddish word). It is triangular, like the hat of the holiday's villain Haman, and stuffed with some kind of filling.
The Hamantaschen is a wonderful cookie because it is so versatile. You can make the traditional poppy seed, which frankly I've never understood the appeal of, or you can change it up. Different doughs, different fillings, even savory, the combinations are endless. So this holiday season I have, for whatever reason, taken it upon myself to make seven different hamantaschen for each day during the week before Purim. I don't think I'll have time to post every day so I'll put a few into each post.
Day 1: Cookie Butter Hamantaschen (IT'S MADE OF COOKIES!!!!!)
Last year I made hamantaschen for my ESL students and to this day they still talk about them! I made a few different types last year but the cookie butter filled hamantaschen were their favorite so I figured it's a good place to start this year!
I remember having a great pareve dough recipe last year but of course I didn't save it anywhere and had no idea where to start looking for it this year. In the end I used Tory Avey's pareve hamantaschen dough recipe. This recipe uses oil, not margarine, which is a huge plus. Not only is it healthier, to some extent, but I also didn't have to wait for anything to soften or pull out my Kitchenaid to make it. The dough comes together easily and doesn't need to be refrigerated. Also, because it's a pretty neutral flavor, you can add basically any filling. I filled mine with about half a teaspoon of cookie butter. It's important to really make sure the sides are smushed together so that they don't pop open while baking. I baked mine for around 12 minutes, even though the recipe calls for 20-25, and they came out chewy with crispy corners.
Here's the recipe I used for the dough: Dairy Free Hamantaschen Dough
Day 2: Funfetti Cheesecake Hamantaschen with Chocolate Drizzle
So I didn't really plan my cookies. I decided on the first day that I was making seven different hamantaschen but I only really had plans for one. This led to me frantically searching for a recipe that I had the ingredients to at 9:15 PM when I got home from tutoring. Apparently I had stocked up on blocks of Philadelphia cream cheese a few weeks ago so I decided to go the cheesecake route. I found a recipe for Funfetti Cheesecake Hamantaschen that looked good, only problem was I didn't have rainbow sprinkles, only chocolate. Can it still be called funfetti if it doesn't look like it came out of a unicorn's butt? Either way the chocolate sprinkles did the trick.
The dough recipe for these cookies is also an oil recipe, which I felt was a bit of a shame as I was making a dairy filling so I could also make a dairy dough, but it was late and I wasn't about to go searching for another recipes and I definitely wasn't willing to wait for butter to soften seeing as I don't have a microwave. As an English teacher the previous run-on sentence is making me cringe.
I also baked these for about 12 minutes. After baking I felt they needed a little something extra so I melted some Hershey's Mini Kiss chocolate chips and drizzled it on top.
Here's the recipe I used: Funfetti Cheesecake Hamantaschen
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