Hamantaschen
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Hamantaschen are cookies, traditionally filled with poppy seeds, eaten for Purim. I hate poppy seeds, and since I was the one making them, I made an apricot (also a popular flavor) filling. If you don’t want to make a filling, just use store-bought preserves. Anyway, they’re in the shape of a triangle, which symbolizes (the Purim bad guy) Haman’s triangular hat or his triangular ears. Hey, I’m just passing along the info…I didn’t make it up.
Anyway, this was a near disaster, and two recipes in the making. The first one I tried was a pareve (non-dairy/non-meat) recipe. Looking at the recipe, I thought it was missing some wet ingredients (orange juice or oil perhaps), but then again, who am I to second guess? I made the dough in the morning, stuck it in the fridge as the recipe says, went out for the day, then came home late afternoon to shape and bake the hamantaschen. The dough was so dry it just crumbled. Thinking I did something wrong, I tried the recipe again and ended up with the same result. So frustrating.
Back to the Internet, and I found this recipe. It’s just okay, not wow! or anything, probably because it reminds me too much of sugar cookie dough. And it’s heavy. The apricot filling is delicious though.
Filling Ingredients
1/4 lb. dried apricots
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons water
Filling Preparation
Cover apricots with 1/2 cup water. Cook over low heat in covered pan for 15 minutes. Mash and add sugar while hot, then add 2 tablespoons water.
Dough Ingredients
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup oil
1/2 cup butter
3 eggs
4 cups flour
1/2 cup orange juice
3 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
Dough Preparation
Cream sugar, oil and margarine. Add eggs and juice and mix well. Blend with dry ingredients and roll into a ball. Refrigerate dough one hour.
Divide dough into four parts. Roll out each piece very thin (approximately 1/8 inch) on a floured board. With the rim of a cup or glass (depending on desired size) cut into the dough to make circles. Place 1/2 to 2/3 teaspoon of filling in the middle of each circle. With your finger, put water around rim of circle.
To shape into triangle, lift up right and left sides, leaving the bottom side down, and bring both sides to meet at center, above the filling. Lift bottom side up to center to meet other two sides.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place on greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 20 minutes.
Yields 4 dozen Hamantaschen.
Original hamantaschen recipe from Jewish Recipes. I altered it slightly.
Apricot filling recipe from jewishfood-list.com.
Oatmeal Scotchies
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I don’t know how to explain my feelings about these cookies without sounding like a crazy person, but here goes.
The scotchies are chewy on the inside, crispy on the outside, and actually look like the picture in the cookbook. The problem? The smell. If I don’t like the smell of something, I can’t eat it. Take for example, gingerbread cookies. If they smell anything like molasses, I can’t go near them–the smell of molasses makes me totally nauseous. And while making these cookies, I learned the same goes for butterscotch. As soon as I opened the bag, I knew I was in trouble, and I was counting the minutes until the last batch would be done. My kitchen smelled so bad!
However, I know I’m weird, and most likely no one else feels the same way about the smell of butterscotch. So, I will bring these into work and let my coworker guinea pigs tell me what they think about the taste, then will report back.
Ingredients
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract or grated peel of 1 orange (I used vanilla)
3 cups quick or old-fashioned oats
1 2/3 cups (11-ounce package) butterscotch flavored morsels
Preparation
- Preheat oven to 375.
- Combine flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in oats and morsels. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.
- Bake for 7 to 8 minutes for chewy cookies or 9 to 10 minutes for crspy cookies. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.
Makes about 4 dozen cookies.
Recipe from The Baking Bible.
New Recipes Soon
I know, I’m long overdue for a post. I wanted to pop on and say I haven’t forgotten about this blog, I just haven’t had time to bake–fun dates with a cute-guy-turned-frog and a trip to NYC have kept me busy! I’m hoping to find time to bake this weekend, and it will probably be some type of cookie, so stay tuned!
Also, a quick hello to everyone who got here via the epi-log.
Caramels
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These are good. But…I had to try the recipe twice. The first time, I followed the directions exactly and I couldn’t get the mixture to heat past 200 degrees. Frustrated (but determined), I tried it again. This time, instead of heating it on low like the directions stated, I heated it on medium-high. I know, I’m such a rebel. But it worked.
Ingredients
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus some for greasing the pan
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
Pinch salt
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Preparation
- Grease a 9-inch square baking pan.
- Combine all ingredients except vanilla in a small saucepan and turn the heat to low. Cook, stirring constantly, until the sugar dissolves, then cook, stirring only occassionally, until the mixture measures 245 degrees.
- Stir in the vanilla and pour into the prepared pan. When the mixture has cooled to room temperature, remove the block of caramel from the pan and use a sharp knife to cut it into small squares. Wrap each square in waxed paper or plastic wrap. These keep for weeks, but are best eaten fresh.
Note: I used a pizza cutter instead of a knife to cut the squares.
Recipe from How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman.
New Feature–Recipe Ratings
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I installed a plugin that will allow me (and you) to rate the recipes I post. It’s simple–just choose the number of stars you think a recipe deserves, the rating will refresh, then it will display. Feel free to test it out on this post.
Before I add this to all the posts, I wanted to see if anyone notices any problems. I thought the page was loading slowly, but my Internet connection at home is all messed up. Let me know if you find any issues with it!
