Ethnic Flavor: When you go to the store to buy a cookie...

Happy Purim, everyone! I know that in the post below, Rebecca said there would be no post about hamentaschen this year. She was misinformed, and I just sent her an angry all-caps text message to correct her mistake. So, that's taken care of.

Right, Purim, Judaism's most genocide-/alcoholism-friendly holiday! This year, Purim is extra-special for a number of reasons:
1) It's on a Sunday, which is extra-good for Saturday night partying
2) It's absurdly early, just like everything on the Jewish calendar this year
3) It's also Rebecca's birthday! So if you see her, be sure to wish her a happy birthday.
4) It's apparently the only day in the month of February that the Baking Sisters are going to blog, so savor it
Purim is alway really fun, not least because I get to dress up and sing my favorite song of all time (referenced in the title of this post: you can find the full lyrics here). The cookie of Purim is, of course, the hamentaschen. Yesterday at children's services, I had the following exchange with a three-year-old:

Sarah: What is the name of the cookie that we eat on Purim?
Child: Hamentaschen!
Sarah: And why do we eat hamentaschen?
Child: Because it's Purim.
Sarah: That's kind of tautological.

No, the real reason we eat Haman's hat/pockets/ears is to commemorate our victory over the wicked wicked man. Plus, they taste good. But I've never found a recipe I've been truly happy with. This year, I tried an oil-based dough (not for any ideological reason so much as that I was making the dough while watching "Say Yes to the Dress: Bridesmaids" with Rachel and oil-based dough can be mixed while sitting in front of the TV). While I was looking on the Internet for recipes, I found a lot of folks who passionately believe that poppyseeds are the only proper filling for hamentaschen. To them I say: get a life, it's just a cookie. I filled mine with raspberry jam and mini chocolate chips. They came out a lot better than they usually do, which I attribute to two things. One, courtesy of my sisters, was that I rolled the dough out very thin. It's a little counterintuitive that thin walls of dough would hold the filling better than thick ones, but on Purim, everything is upside down! Two, I folded the corners instead of just pinching them. This probably seems blindingly obvious to most of you, but for whatever reason it never occurred to me until this year. 

Taste-wise, they were pretty good. I'm guessing that it's the oil in the dough, but they were a little tough. I happen to think that crunchy hamentaschen are better than doughy ones, so I didn't mind, but that's a matter of opinion. These were simple to make and satisfying to eat, but I'm going to keep searching for the perfect recipe, so check back in next year! The recipe is here. (Note: the recipe calls for four eggs but is not at all clear that only three are supposed to go in the dough; one is for egg wash. I put all four in the dough and I don't think it affected them negatively.)

Ethnic Flavor: Hamentashen with 3 3-year-olds

Purim, the Jewish holiday that starts Wednesday night, is really a celebration holiday.  Everyone wears costumes, has parties and eats delicious cookies called Hamentashen, all in celebration of the Jewish victory over the evil Haman.  Hamentashen are shaped like a triangle, like either Haman's hat or Haman's ear, depending on who you ask.

Hamentashen should be relatively easy to make.  You make dough, roll it out, cut circles, put in a drop of filling and then pinch them into a triangle shape.  However, I have yet to make hamentashen where the sides of the cookies don't open up.  If you have made yummy cookies and used good quality filling, this isn't a big problem, because they are still delicious, but it can be annoying to do all that work and still have them open.  When you are making them with 3 3-year-olds, this is even more likely to happen.

Some important things I have learned:

1.  You want to make the dough really, really thin.  Thinner than you would think.

2.  You should only put in a very, very small amount of filling

3.  Use some beaten egg around the edges of the circle before you pinch it to act as glue

If all these things happen, generally they won't open up, but if one of them is off, it won't work.  Most important is to use a cookie that is tasty and filling that you like (there are no rules -- you can use anything), so that even if they open, they will still be good to eat.

I used this recipe, from Kosher By Design.  Overall, they were a hit with the 3 year olds and their parents.