hamantashen for purim

this week, we celebrated purim... quite possibly the best jewish holiday ever! this holiday commemorates the deliverance of the Persian Jews from destruction in the reign of the Persian king Ahasuerus. at temple we read the story of esther (not madonna) and haman (boo!!!!), and we dress up in costume and have a big party, and usually a carnival with prizes for the kids. check out http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday9.htm for more specific info on the holiday...

one of the most important parts of this minor holiday is the 3 cornered cookie called hamantaschen. it is shaped like a triangle to represent haman's (boo!) 3 cornered hat. the bosses' grandkids have been asking for hamantaschen all week, so on wednesday, i baked some... these cookies come with a variety of fillings ranging from prune to apricot to cherry, but as we all know, all these kids wanted was chocolate chip, and who am i to argue (chocolate in my fav too!) so, i busted out my mom's temple sisterhood cookbook and found her recipe for hamantaschen...

4 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 cup oil
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1.5 tsp. baking powder

Add warm water to flour and rest of ingredients to make a soft dough ball. divide into 6 balls. roll out, one at a time. use large mouth glass to cut dough into circles. fill with filling; pinch corners together to fashion triangle, and place on greased cookie sheet.

bake at 350F until brown, about 20 minute.

as you can see, this is a pretty basic recipe, but i did have to call my mom and yell at her about this one. what order do i put the ingredients together? do i cream the oil and sugar together first? or do i just throw everything in a bowl and hope it comes out okay?

her response... "i just threw it all in a bowl and mixed it up"

thanks mom!

i did cream the sugar and oil together first (never any harm doing that), and i sifted the flour, salt and baking powder together just to make sure everything was well mixed. i added chocolate chips, white and dark swirled chips, and chocolate and caramel swirled chips as filling, as well as a few made with blueberry pie filling. all of them came out great! in fact, i every found prune butter (yuck!) and filled a few for my boss, and he loved them too!

sorry i forgot to take photos, i guess you will all have to wait a year until purim comes around again to see what they look like!