Hamantaschen are a traditional Jewish cookie made for the holiday of Purim, or Jewish Halloween. They are basically the perfect cookie in my humble opinion. What is better than a sweet cookie filled with delicious jam? When I was younger, my mom and I had to bake so many batches of hamantaschen because my family and friends would gobble them up so quickly. My mom tried to hide them so we wouldn’t have to keep baking them every night, but that never worked-someone always found them.
While I love classic hamantaschen, (find my recipe and instructions with pictures here), I kind of get bored of the same old thing. I need to mix it up a little, turn a classic recipe on its head. We used to experiment with different fillings a lot when I was younger. We would try filling the hamantasch dough with chocolate chips, marshmallows, chocolate spread and other various creations that didn’t go so well. We also used to try a peanut butter and jelly filling. For some reason, the peanut butter didn’t really bake well. It would dry out and become crumbly. I thought to myself, what if I make a peanut butter dough and fill it with delicious fruit jams! Peanut butter and jelly hamantaschen! This was my mini aha moment. I was so proud of the idea. The only problem was that I hadn’t seen it done anywhere which means there are no recipes available. I was challenged with developing my own recipe and I am so happy with the results. These are a great alternative to the classic and will appeal to the kid in everyone. Chag sameach!
- 1 cup honey
- ¾ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup shortening
- ¾ cup smooth peanut butter
- 1 tsp. vanilla
- 4 eggs
- 4½ cups flour
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- ¾ tsp. salt
- Your favorite flavor jam filling*
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the honey, brown sugar, shortening, peanut butter, and vanilla until smooth.
- Add in the eggs, one at a time until combined.
- With the mixer on low speed, add in the dry ingredients and mix until the dough comes together. Do not mix too much or the cookies will be tough.
- Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill for at least an hour in the fridge.
- Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and roll the dough out thin.
- Using a round cookie cutter (I use a cutter that is 2 ½ to 3 inches in diameter) or a drinking glass, cut out the cookies.
- Using a spoon or a pastry bag fitted with a plain tip, fill the cookies with the jam filling. *Make sure the jam is oven proof meaning it won’t melt and ooze out of the cookies. Apricot and prune butter work nicely as well as anything labeled “oven proof”, “bakers filling”, or “cake and pastry filling”.
- Pinch 3 corners, forming the classic triangle shape and bake for 8-10 minutes on parchment lined baking sheet until light golden brown.
- Allow to cool-the filling will be extremely hot! Enjoy!
I couldn’t get him to smile for me in this pose, but I wanted you to see the whole costume. Here’s the side view.
The crown and mask are made of gumpaste. I like using gumpaste because it dries quickly and super hard.
I used a template to cut out the crown shape and then I used a quilting tool to create this look. Once it was dry I airbrushed it in shiny gold.
I used another template to cut out the mask. Once it was dry, I attached a stick using royal icing. Once everything was dry, I airbrushed it a shiny green and then piped on some royal icing that I colored deep purple.
I colored some fondant brown for the cookie dough and filled the cookie with red and purple piping gel. Once they were all pinched together, I airbrushed the corners brown to get that freshly baked effect. Here’s my recipe for 
Roar!
Here is the tricky part-pinching the corners. First I lift up the bottom of the round cookie with my thumb. Then with my pointer, I lift one side and pinch that corner together. Then the third side gets lifted and the 2 other corners are pinched together. Here is how it looks.
They look like little edible jewels! I always have a hard time waiting for them to cool before I can gobble them up. It’s not officially the Jewish holiday of Purim if I haven’t burned my mouth on the piping hot jam filling in these hamantaschen.
. This recipe is different than any other hamantaschen recipe I’ve come across. Most recipes are similar to a sugar cookie, crispy and crumbly. This recipe yields a more cake-like cookie, fluffy and tender. I usually like to change every recipe I use to make it better, make it my own, but this recipe is so simple and perfect as is. Plus, it’s non-dairy!