Hi.  My name is Mark and this is my cooking blog.

I get asked a lot for my recipes, so I decided to start this cooking blog.  What you’ll find here will be my recipes and my variations on others’ recipes, my cooking tips and who knows what else. 

I should say up front that I’m lactose intolerant (check out my lactose intolerance site www.nowhey.org) and I also try to live a low-carb lifestyle.  So the recipes you’ll find here will generally be devoid of milk and milk products and try, wherever possible, to be low in carbs.

I hope you enjoy the site and the recipes.

Mark

Hamantaschen are traditional Jewish cookies, made in the shape of a triangle and filled with prune or poppy-seed filling and served during the festival of Purim.  They are named after Haman, the villain in the Story of Esther (The Megillah) who wore a three-cornered hat.  This recipe is for the prune version.

Ingredients:
Dough:
1 stick of  unsalted butter (1/2 cup)
1 cup of sugar
3 1/2 cups of all purpose unbleached flour
1 tbs baking powder
1/2 tsp sea or kosher salt
3 eggs

Filling:
16 ozs of prunes (aka Dried Plums)
Zest and juice from 1 medium orange
1/4 cup of dry-roasted almonds

To make the dough: Cut the stick of butter into 4-6 slices and put into the bowl of a stand mixer.  Add in the sugar and run on a low speed with the standard mixing paddle until the butter and sugar are combined.  Add in the three eggs and continue beating until well mixed.  Now add in the flour, salt and baking powder and mix at medium speed until well combined.  The dough should just come together – if it’s sticky, add some more flour.  Chill well.

To make the filling:  Put the nuts in your food processor (chopping blade) and pulse until they are finely chopped.  Add the prunes to bowl along with the zest and juice from the orange.  (You want the zest from the entire orange.)  Run the processor until the prunes are well chopped and mixed with the nuts and orange – about 15-20 seconds.

When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350 degrees with the racks at 1/3 and 2/3.  On well floured surface, roll out about 1/3 of the dough to somewhere between 1/16 and 1/8″ thick.  Cut circles with a 3″ round cookie cutter.  Stack the circles on a plate.  Gather up the scraps and repeat (adding fresh dough as necessary) until all the dough is rolled and cut.  Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.  Take a dough circle and lay it flat on your work surface.  Put a dollop (about 1/2 tbs) of filling into the center of the circle.  Fold two edges of the circle to make the first point of the triangle.  Pinch the dough together.  Now fold up the remaining side of the dough and pinch the corners.  It’s not necessary to close up the whole triangle – the filling can peek out the top a little.  Transfer to the cookie sheet.  Repeat until you’ve used up all the dough and filling.

Put one cookie sheet on each rack and bake for 12 minutes, switching the position of the top and lower sheets at 6 minutes.  After 12 minutes, check to see if the dough is all firm – check some of the thicker ones.  If they need a bit more time – turn off the oven heat and leave them in the oven for another minute or two.  You don’t want to over bake them.

When they are done, remove from the oven and allow to cool on the sheets for about 5-6 minutes and then transfer the hamantaschen to cooling racks.  Enjoy!

Notes:  You can use salted butter instead of unsalted – if you do, leave the salt out of the dough.  I like the prune filling but you can fill these with almost any kind of preserves (apricot is popular) or a poppy seed filling from a can.  I have also made them with some chocolate and peanut butter.