I just made my first batch of hamantashen dough to make cookies for Purim. As usual, I popped a nut-sized ball of the delicious cookie dough in my mouth and the sugar rush hit me like a shot of Tequila.
Judaism is not about food. It's about sweets. Think about it. Moses lured them out of Egypt with promises of milk and HONEY. But seriously, Hanukkah has its chocolate gelt, Passover, fruit slices and macaroons. Shavuot - cheesecake, Rosh Hashanah, apples and honey. Even Shabbat has supercharged Manischevitz wine and cookies at the oneg. Personally, I appreciate these sweets. I really do. But for my money, there's nothing quite like Hamantashen cookie dough. (Empty bowl pictured below).
Here's the recipe for the cookies, although I haven't made the final product yet this year (my dough is resting until I pick up some filling) and so I can't send luscious cookie visuals.
2 cups of sugar
1/2 cup of parve margarine
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
4 ish cups rice-based gluten free flour blend
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum (optional)
Pinch of salt
Solo or other brand filling
Cream the sugar with the margarine in a mixer until it is very well mixed. Add the eggs one by one, add the vanilla with the last egg. Make sure they are well mixed. Add the flour a cup at a time, including the salt and xanthan gum in the 3rd cup. Usually I get to 3 1/2 cups and it is very stiff, so I stop.
Put the dough in a ziploc bag in the refrigerator to rest (maybe sneak a nut-size ball of cookie dough to eat). Half an hour or a couple days later, bring out a fistful of dough, and roll it out on more gluten free flour between 2 sheets of wax paper. I use a bread board and a granite rolling pin, and get it about 1/4 inch thick (for me, half the width of my thumbnail). Peel the wax paper from the top. Put it back on, flip it over, peel the wax paper from the other side.
Find a glass, cookie or biscuit cutter around 2 1/2 inches diameter. Cut out as many as you can, and transfer them to the cookie sheet with pre-greased parchment paper. Add a teaspoon of filling to each round. My favorite is fig butter from Trader Joes. Poppyseed, appricot and prune from Solo are more traditional. Next, pinch up the sides into the three-cornered cookies we know and love. Too much filling makes it impossible to properly pinch the sides together. This website has a diagram, uses a 3 inch cookie cutter, and suggests you wet the cookie with a little cold water before pinching it together. This might help it stay pinched, but don't get the dough too wet.
Don't position the cookies too close together on the cookie sheet. They don't spread much, but they need the hot oven air to engulf them. Bake for 15 minutes at 375F in a conventional oven, or 10 minutes at 350F in a convection oven. How brown they look depends on which GF flour mix you are using. After they cool, label them and throw them in the freezer until it's Purim season.
Enjoy! There is a saying in Judaism, may you go from strength to strength, but I'd rather go from sweetness to sweetness ...
Judaism is not about food. It's about sweets. Think about it. Moses lured them out of Egypt with promises of milk and HONEY. But seriously, Hanukkah has its chocolate gelt, Passover, fruit slices and macaroons. Shavuot - cheesecake, Rosh Hashanah, apples and honey. Even Shabbat has supercharged Manischevitz wine and cookies at the oneg. Personally, I appreciate these sweets. I really do. But for my money, there's nothing quite like Hamantashen cookie dough. (Empty bowl pictured below).
Gluten Free Hamantashen for Purim (parve)
2 cups of sugar
1/2 cup of parve margarine
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
4 ish cups rice-based gluten free flour blend
1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum (optional)
Pinch of salt
Solo or other brand filling
Cream the sugar with the margarine in a mixer until it is very well mixed. Add the eggs one by one, add the vanilla with the last egg. Make sure they are well mixed. Add the flour a cup at a time, including the salt and xanthan gum in the 3rd cup. Usually I get to 3 1/2 cups and it is very stiff, so I stop.
Put the dough in a ziploc bag in the refrigerator to rest (maybe sneak a nut-size ball of cookie dough to eat). Half an hour or a couple days later, bring out a fistful of dough, and roll it out on more gluten free flour between 2 sheets of wax paper. I use a bread board and a granite rolling pin, and get it about 1/4 inch thick (for me, half the width of my thumbnail). Peel the wax paper from the top. Put it back on, flip it over, peel the wax paper from the other side.
Find a glass, cookie or biscuit cutter around 2 1/2 inches diameter. Cut out as many as you can, and transfer them to the cookie sheet with pre-greased parchment paper. Add a teaspoon of filling to each round. My favorite is fig butter from Trader Joes. Poppyseed, appricot and prune from Solo are more traditional. Next, pinch up the sides into the three-cornered cookies we know and love. Too much filling makes it impossible to properly pinch the sides together. This website has a diagram, uses a 3 inch cookie cutter, and suggests you wet the cookie with a little cold water before pinching it together. This might help it stay pinched, but don't get the dough too wet.
Don't position the cookies too close together on the cookie sheet. They don't spread much, but they need the hot oven air to engulf them. Bake for 15 minutes at 375F in a conventional oven, or 10 minutes at 350F in a convection oven. How brown they look depends on which GF flour mix you are using. After they cool, label them and throw them in the freezer until it's Purim season.
Enjoy! There is a saying in Judaism, may you go from strength to strength, but I'd rather go from sweetness to sweetness ...
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