This sweet dessert delight is a must have today, as NY celebrates the Jewish Festival of Purim. This commemorates the overthrow of a rather unpleasant man by the name Haman, a Grand Vizier in the days of the Persian Empire, whose plot to annihilate the Jewish populous of the time failed on this date

The Ingredients for the Pastry & Filling

To remind children of what a bad guy he was, it’s traditional to dress up in costume and consume this sweet triangular shaped pastry (apparently, it was designed to resemble the villain’s ears!)

But I digress, as this is actually a fabulous pastry to have with one’s morning coffee, or even afternoon tea, whether it’s Purim or on any other day. It’s traditional to fill the tri-corner pastry with fruit or even a poppy seed mix, depending on where one’s folks originated in the diaspora (be it around the Mediterranean, or from Eastern Europe etc)

I decided to bake mine using cooked dried apricots as the filling, following a classic recipe by Marlena Spieler. See what you think

Ingredients

Apricots & Cinnamon Filling being reduced

• For the Pastry
  • 4 oz unsalted butter
  • 1  1/4 cups of sugar
  • 2 tbsp milk
  • 1 beaten egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • salt
  • 2 1/2 cups plain flour
• For the Apricot Filling
  • 1 generous cup of dried apricots (I used organic Turkish ones, that had a great dark tea like flavor from Trader Joe’s)
  • 1 stick of cinnamon
  • 3 tbsp of sugar

Method

Creaming the Sugar & Butter

• Cream the sugar and butter in a large bowl, whilst mixing the vanilla, milk and egg in another and sifting the flour in a third one
• Add the flour 1/3 at a time interspersed with the milk mix into the sugar butter mix adding a pinch of salt until all is combined and roll into a large short crust pastry ball
• Place in the fridge for around an hour
  

  Dough Ready to Roll

• Meanwhile, place the apricots, cinnamon and sugar in a pan, cover with water and warm at a simmer for 15 minutes, or until the apricots have softened and the water almost evaporated
  

  Apricot Filling

• Remove the cinnamon stick, pop the apricots and what hasn’t evaporated of the sugar water mix  into a food processor and blend until it resembles a rough jam like substance
• Take the pastry, roll on  a flour coated surface until it’s around 1/4 inch thick, then, using a circular pastry cutter, cut it into roughly 25 – 35 rounds
• Plop a blob of the reduced apricot ‘jam’ into the center of each round, folding the pastry up and pinching the corners so it looks like George Washington’s tricorne hat!
• Pop the uncooked Hamantashen on a greased baking sheet and place in the oven at 350 f for around 15 minutes, remove and dust with powder (or icing) sugar
  

  Ready to Bake

Serve warm – sweet and moreish.

Happy Purim Blog readers!