sour cherry hamantaschen? peanut-butter? chocolate?

[smartstart]

hi all! I'm making hamantaschen; I'm doing apricot lekvar for one filling, but looking for others. I have some dried sour cherries, but am not quite sure if/how to spice them. and: what happens to things like peanut butter and nutella in hamantaschen? and does anybody have a good recipe for a chocolate filling?

[sherry f]

My 16 year old son (yes that's right) made a batch of chocolate hamantashen with chocolate chips.

[tastytamarind]

The log-cut method can work if the dough is parfrozen; otherwise, the slicing will ruin the shape of your circles. And yes, straight nutella -- it's so fatty that it keeps the perfect gooey-not-soft texture through the baking. You can add various extracts to it for a kick -- my fave is orange.

[4chowpups]

I am not Jewish but I LOVE homemade hamantaschen, in college my roommate's mother always sent a tin every year and my roommate hated them...lucky me! I recently found a recipe in the archives from a hound and I'm wondering, it was suggested to form the dough into a log and cut into rounds-sounded easier than rolling and cutting. Has anyone else tried to make them this way? Also, are you using just straight Nutella? It doesn't leak out? TIA!

[ssssssandy]

Can you make Hamantashen with cream cheese pastry? I made some pastry dough thinking I would make Rugelah but didn't and froze the dough. Now that it is almost Purim I am thinking of making Hamantashen instead but not sure if the dough will hold up.

Any thoughts?

[doctor_mama]

I use a yeast dough for hamantaschen, but the book I use (A Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking, by Marcy Goldman) has a recipe for cream cheese pastry hamantaschen.

[tastytamarind]

Hamantashen Recipe

By Joan Nathan (Jewish Holiday Kitchen)

Makes about 36

2/3 cup pareve margarine or butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla (I use more)
2 1/2-3 cups sifted unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Dash of salt

1. Cream the shortening with sugar. Add egg and continue creaming until smooth.

2. Add the vanilla. Stir in the sifted flour, baking powder, and salt until a ball of dough is formed (a food processor is excellent for this). You may need to add a couple teaspoons of water if dough seems too crumbly.

3. Chill for 2-3 hours, or overnight.

4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees

5. Taking 1/4 of the dough at a time (leaving the rest in the fridge), roll out on a lightly floured board to a thickness of 1/8 inch. Cut circles of dough with a drinking glass or round cookie-cutter. With your finger put water around the rim of the circle. Fill with 1 teaspoon filling and fold into three-cornered cookies. (Press two sides together, and then fold the third side over and press the ends together.)

6. Bake on a well-greased cookie sheet 10-16 minutes, until the tops are golden.

FYI: the dough can get quite crumbly; if it's too hard to work with, add a bit of water, and it should behave. Also, DON'T skip the step of putting water around the edge of the circle. It's the only thing that makes them keep their shape. Enjoy!

[Mickey Blue]

I second that! Please post it :-)

[tastytamarind]

I buy a halva spread (they have one in Jerusalem) but I've done it before with some good sesame butter and a hefty dose of honey. if you prefer a healthfood-y taste, use whole sesame butter; otherwise, use unadulterated tehina -- just the paste from the inside of the sesames, without any additions (lemon, parsley, etc). They should sell it in a good grocery store.

On the subject, I'm incredibly picky about hamentaschen -- I only eat my mom's. Her recipe is not the easiest to work with, but they come out fantastically crispy on the outside and chewy inside -- like cookies, and less like the too-crumbly ones from stores or the overly soft ones we get every year. Her recipe is from Joan Nathan. If anyone wants the recipe, just shout.

[smartstart]

I do! Share, please!

[rockycat]

You never know what you'll find in a Chouwhound's cupboard. Seems there was an unopened tub of...halva spread. About a dozen hamantaschen are now filled with it and cooling. I don't yet know how the hamantaschen came out but the filling out of the tub was pretty good. Ta'im me'od.

What else can use the spread for?

[tastytamarind]

Halva spread is great as a filler for sandwich cookies and it's fantastic in cake. Also, my favorite bakery in Jerusalem makes a sweet challah with a thin layer of halva on the outside that's just to die for.

[lora]

I have a dried sour cherry filling that I put in darn near everything. Simmer half a pound in water to cover (throwing in a bit of brandy if you like) until soft; drain but reserve the liquid; and puree with the juice and zest of a lemon, sugar to taste, and enough cooking liquid to get the consistency you want. Leave it pretty stiff for a filling. Any leftovers are heaven on toast.

[smartstart]

Lora, you're a godsend. That's exactly what I was looking for-- thank you! I did a trial run this am with apricot lekvar, which I made essentially that way, adding in the rind and juice of an orange. Mmm. I'm going to try a chocolate filling tomorrow... Thank you!

[p.j.]

We will be assembling and baking ours tonight. I made the dough last night, so it would be really cold tonight. We will be using raspberry & poppy fillings from Solo. I make my own prune filling in the processor with soft dried prunes, lemon juice, walnuts, and a little sugar.

When I suggested to my 14 yoa daughter this a.m. (a baker in her own right) that I might try putting some slivered almonds in with the raspberry, she said that I wasn't allowed to change the traditional recipe, and that she doesn't want to make any chocolate chip this year. Maybe it was just too early in the a.m. to discuss it!!
Good luck, p.j.

[Chocolatechipkt]

I made some last weekend and had a poppyseed filling, some with apricot preserves, and a few with raspberry preserves (end of the jar, though, so it was a bit more liquidy than I'd prefer.) I'm going to make some more tonight with the rest of the poppyseed filling and a nutella-like filling (which I've used before and is reallllly good.)

[tastytamarind]

nutella is the best. My mom and I have tried everything, and nutella is the only filling that stays soft without going mushy. It holds together well and is simply perfect.

I'm doing some poppy, raspberry, and halva (my new favorite).

[rockycat]

Halva sounds great. I'm making mine tomorrow night (um, yeah, shomer shabbos - not). How are you doing the halva filling? Recipe, please.