Three Cornered Hat

I think you could safely say that I was a nerd in high school. I was a band geek, I dabbled at chess, I got a 5 on the AP biology exam. I hung out with people who liked (and played) classical music, and we'd bake together for fun. Pretzels were always entertaining, because you get to shape the dough, into shapes that weren't necessarily pretzel shapes. [Go ahead, think about teenage boys making pretzels.] And more than once, we made hamantaschen. Recently, in trying to organize the MANY recipes floating loose around my house, I found the handwritten recipe for the hamantaschen we made some 30 years ago. Since Purim starts tonight, I thought I'd post it. And, just to make sure they were okay, I made some last night.

They're good, but not as good as I remember. The filling is a little bit too sweet, and I really do like apricot better than prune.

Looking over the old recipe is funny. It was written out by one of my best friends from high school [who has her own blog], but it's got little handwritten notes from someone else who I think may have been an old boyfriend. It also has admonitions, like "don't eat the dough!"

Go out and make some noise! Or go home and make some hamantaschen!

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HAMANTASCHEN

DOUGH

• 1 ½ sticks of butter
• ½ cup sugar
• 3 cups flour
• 1 egg
• ¼ cup milk
• ½ t. vanilla extract

Cream butter and sugar in a standing mixer, until light and fluffy. Beat in ¼ cup of the flour, and then the egg. Mix vanilla into milk. Alternating dry and wet ingredients, add a third of the remaining flour, half the milk mixture, another third of the flour, the remaining milk and then the remaining flour. Beat well after each addition. Gather dough into a ball, wrap in waxed paper and refrigerate for 30-60 minutes.

FILLING

• 1 cup lekvar (prune butter)
• ½ cup finely chopped blanched almonds
• 2 T. grated orange rind
• 2 T. sugar

Mix all together and set aside.

ASSEMBLY
Preheat oven to 350°F. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface. Cut into 4” circles with a biscuit cutter or a glass. Reroll scraps as necessary, to make as many circles as possible.
Put a scant teaspoon of filling in the middle of a circle, and form into a triangle (like a tricorn hat). Pinch well at the corners so they don’t open up in the oven. Leave the filling exposed in the center. Transfer to the cookie sheets. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Transfer to a rack, and let them cool before eating.

If you’re viscerally opposed to prunes, you could use apricot preserves instead. If you're feeling fancy, you could do an egg wash (1 egg yolk mixed up with 2 T. milk, brushed on the pastry before baking).