Happy Purim!

Happy St. Patrick's Day to you all! I hope you are enjoying some Irish Soda Bread, Crockpot Corned Beef and some green beer today! This past weekend was the Jewish holiday of Purim, so I made some awesome dough and my 3-year-old and I made Hamantaschen cookies. I remember making these with my mom and grandmother growing up with interesting fillings like lemon, apricot, and poppyseed. I knew my son wouldn't touch the cookies if they had these 'weird' fillings, so we bought some raspberry preserves! These cookies tasted so fresh and I hope you enjoy them!

Hamantaschen Cookies (I halved this recipe to make 30 cookies, original recipe makes 60)

Ingredients

- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 tsp. lemon zest (or orange zest)
- 1 tbsp. orange juice
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 1 egg
- 1 egg, lightly beaten for egg wash
- 2 cups flour
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- raspberry preserves

1. Cream butter and sugar together.
2. Add lemon zest, orange juice, vanilla and egg.
3. In a separate bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and salt together.
4. Slowly add flour mixture to butter/sugar mixture until a ball of dough forms.
5. Place dough in cling wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.
6. Roll out cookie dough to 1/8 inch thick and using a 3 inch fluted round cutter, cut out your cookies and place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet.
7. Place 1 1/2 tsp. raspberry preserves in the center of cookie and brush sides with the egg wash.
8. Pinch the sides to form a triangle.
9. Bake cookies at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes (mine took 12 min).

 Ball of Cookie Dough

 Round cookie with preserves, and cookie with sides pinched to form triangle 

 My little helper putting the preserves in the center of each cookie (a very sticky job)

 Hamantaschen before being baked

Happy Purim!

Enjoy!

Brittney