Last month I wrote about my plans for baking mishloach manot to give to friends as Purim treats. I love giving food as gifts, and I love Purim because giving food is essential to the holiday.
A traditional Purim food is a pastry called hamantaschen, which means “Haman’s pockets.” These triangular filled pastries are reminders of Esther’s victory over villainous Haman, the biblical story of her forced marriage and bravery in protecting her fellow Jews. To celebrate the joy of Esther’s triumph, Purim is a day of feasting, and just about everyone looks forward to eating tons and tons of hamantaschen. They are traditionally filled with prunes or poppy seeds, but preserves and chocolate are popular too. My husband’s favorite is apricot preserves, so I decided to make him some as a Purim treat.
As a cookbook author, I have made many different recipes for hamantaschen while trying to develop a perfect dough. One of the best and easiest recipes I made was passed on by a friend, and the dough is mainly made of boxed cake mix. Start with a yellow cake mix, add a quarter cup flour, two beaten eggs and a tablespoon of water. Knead until a dough forms. Rolling the dough will be easier if you refrigerate the dough for at least an hour (or even overnight). Roll out dough and cut into rounds. Place a teaspoon of preserves on each round. Pinch three corners together to form triangle shape. Using parchment to line your baking sheet will make clean up easy, especially if the preserves leak a bit during baking. If you don’t use parchment, grease the baking sheet liberally. Back at 375 degrees until golden brown (about 20 minute). Easy and delicious!
Here is the result:
P.S. – I had a flash of inspiration for next year’s Purim party. After reading Andi’s latest post, it occurs to me that a doll cake of Queen Esther would be a Purim party showstopper.